


Ask Questions, Raise Hell

by sorrens



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Actual useful counselling tips from an actual counsellor in training, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Professors, Crowley carries his degree in his back pocket like a boss, Depression, Gabriel's a dick, M/M, No Betas We Fall Like Crowley, aziraphalesgayawakening.txt, ineffable husbands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-11-26 11:27:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 29,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20929442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sorrens/pseuds/sorrens
Summary: Aziraphale is an English teacher resigned to his school’s emphasis on “employability”. Crowley is the aloof guidance counsellor who swoops in and starts stirring up trouble by getting students to question the natural order.It's quite endearing, actually.(Complete)





	1. A Fourth Piece of Gum on Gabriel's Shoe

**Author's Note:**

> & I'm on Tumblr at [@sorrens](https://sorrens.tumblr.com)

English was a prerequisite for life and yet, somehow, it barely featured on the senior’s timetable. Well, it “featured” due to the legislation put forth by the education department, but to say it was poorly attended was an understatement. This was, in part, due to the current headmaster: Gabriel Archangel and his administration lackies who’d spent the last two years viciously corralling the students of Eden High School towards the lucrative temptations of business and law and STEM.

It looked good on the memos, he’d said in one staff meeting. By “memos” he’d meant the reports to the school board, the more students that graduated to actual degrees that made actual careers had given Eden top spot in the local public school rankings. This was all under his tutelage, and he intended to maintain this position.

There were three teachers particularly distressed by the principal’s attitude, and they hung around the school like an unwelcome piece of gum on Gabriel’s expensive loafers.

They were as follows:

One Miss Anathema Device, who taught History and Sociology in all its permutations. She was a particularly troublesome piece of gum in that she was fiercely vocal about the importance of her subjects, Gabriel had tried to silence her with pay bonuses and rostered days off but she’d stubbornly turned up anyway and used the extra money to add more decorations to her aggressively loud classroom.

Mr Newton Pulsifer who taught computing and IT. This would seem at odds with Eden’s modus operandi, that such a useful subject was causing the principal enormous amounts of pain, but it wasn’t the subject that was the issue, it was the teacher himself. Mr Pulsifer was, perhaps, the only computer science graduate who’d managed to stumble through the degree despite setting every computer he touched on fire. Figuratively, literally, perhaps the man was somehow possessed by lighting, because things tended to explode in his presence. The question of how he got to teach a subject that he was in no way equipped to teacher is answered by considering the previous principal, one Dr Agnes Nutter. Gabriel had taken particular pleasure in ousting that lunatic, whose curricula and teacher selection seemed to be predicated on vague intuitions and the set of crystals that had sat on her desk. The board had expressed concern that the school was falling apart at the hand of her various whims, which included things like encouraging the arts and hiring teachers like Mr Pulsifer.

Gabriel wasn’t quite sure where she retired to when he took over, but he sincerely hoped it was as far away from the school as possible. Her influence was great and it took a couple of months before the staff had even begun to warm to Gabriel, despite his charms, which was quite odd considering he got the impression that Dr Nutter was nothing short of a crazed witch to be around.

And the third, well, he wasn’t too much of an issue. A bit of a recluse.

Dr Azira Fell was head of the English department (a generous way of saying he was the only member of such “department”). How a moderate sized high school managed with just one English teacher was a source of wonderment for the nearby schools, but it had always been this way. Despite his many failings (like being a teacher of a redundant subject), Gabriel had to admit that Dr Fell was extremely good at what he did, able to manage upwards of 200 students and get them the passing English grade they needed to get in to their Economics degree and the like. The benefit of only having one English teacher was that the workload kept him in check, Dr Fell was run off of his feet trying to attend to his students that he didn’t have the time to plan lessons or deliver lectures with the degree of enthusiasm he probably would have before Gabriel had cut down the staff. It made it a lot easier for students to hate the subject, moaning and dragging their feet to the class and counting down the days when they could leave it behind forever.

As for the poor attendance, it was common knowledge that administration didn’t monitor attendance in Dr Fell’s classes. His frequent reports that class numbers were dwindling fell on deaf ears and reports in to rubbish bins. Dr Fell was a piece of gum on Gabriel’s shoe that, unfortunately, was required to hold this school together, but that didn’t mean the principal couldn’t be annoyed about it.

When Gabriel arrived at the office, laden down with papers, his receptionist waved wildly to get his attention, pointing to the waiting area.

“Wha—“ he spun around to find a boy dressed like a goth lounging, positively melting, in to one of the plush seats. His face hardened. Eden didn’t have a uniform, per say, but there were a stringent set of rules detailing dress etiquette and this flaunted every one of them. Tight, distressed skinny jeans (distressed and distressingly tight), dark sunglasses, leather jacket, Gabriel saw a tattoo peeking out from the boy’s sideburns and righteous anger rose in him.

“Right, right, get in to my office, I’ll deal with you in a minute.” The boy shrugged at the clipped tone and sauntered through the nearby door. Gabriel spent a few minutes haphazardly filing, muttering to himself about delinquents, and wondering if a tattoo was sufficient grounds for expulsion.

* * *

He slammed the door behind him and took a seat at the desk. The boy hadn’t even bothered to remove his sunglasses. The boy—

Now that Gabriel got a good look at him, this kid seemed to be quite old, and he was quickly realising that maybe he’d made a mistake.

“Did you get sent to the office?” He asked slowly.

The boy frowned behind those stupid glasses.

“I guess, I thought it’d be the right place to report on my first day.” His voice was a deep baritone. First day. Gabriel’s stomach sank.

“You’re not—“

“I am indeed the Guidance Counsellor your receptionist hired.” There was a bit of a smirk playing on the man’s face. The principal swore inwardly. He knew that it hadn’t been a great idea to let Mary hire a counsellor without his input, he just couldn’t be bothered weighing in at the time, he didn’t think she’d let her eyes do all the judging.

This man was exactly his receptionist’s type.

“Sorry, how rude of me. Anthony Crowley.” The man drawled, leaning forward to offer a hand.

Gabriel took it.

“So you’re an actual, qualified guidance counsellor?”

“Yup,”

Unlikely.

“Do you have your qualifications with you?”

To his horror, the man fished around in his back pocket, extracting a few crumpled pieces of paper which he slid across the desk.

“Photocopies, but it’s all there.”

Oh fuck.

“Okay… I guess then I better introduce you to the school. Show you around. Let you know what we stand for.” To his surprise, the man was shaking his head.

“No?”

“Well, I don’t need the tour. I’m an alumnus.”

Gabriel’s eyebrows receded in to his hairline.

“Oh?”

“Technically,” Anthony reclined somewhat. “I was here for a few years, until 10th form.”

With a slight suspicion, Gabriel probed further.

“And then? Why did you leave?”

“Nah, I didn’t leave. I was kicked out.”

Gabriel stilled.

“You were what?!”

Anthony didn’t seem remotely ashamed at the admission. He shrugged.

“Nevermind, I’m glad your lovely receptionist decided to give me a second chance anyway, equal opportunity employment and all that.”

Gabriel fiddled with the papers on his desk, seething.

“Right. Well, things have changed around here since your little escapades. I need a guidance counsellor who can help at risk students discover some viable options for their future.”

Crowley graced the man with a smile.

“I’m very happy working with at risk kids, I’ll assure you that’s my speciality. You’ve picked the right man for the job.”

Gabriel frowned.

“I need to make sure we’re on the same page, so to speak, about what qualifies as “at risk”. See, at Eden, we’ve done our very best to be selective in our students. We do not tolerate slackers, or truants, or trouble makers.” He levelled the red head with a glare.

“When we talk about at risk students, I’m not referring to the riffraff, I mean those haven’t found their calling, their direction in life. You need to steer them the right way.”

“The right way?” Anthony shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Like making sure they don’t get in to drugs or?”

Gabriel shook his head.

“No, we want you to provide career advice. Promote, as it were, the courses offered at Eden Institute of Science and Business to make sure they end up in the right direction.”

“What if they don’t want to study science or business?” Anthony said slowly.

“We just want what’s best for them. They’ll realise it soon enough.” He stood up abruptly “Here, I’ll show you to you room and let you get set up.”

As they marched through the waiting room Gabriel pretended not to notice the coy wave that Mary gave to their new recruit.

* * *

There were five people in his class and it was something of a miracle.

“Brilliant,” Azira smiled at his bored looking cohort. “Splendid turn out.” He pulled out the notes on Wilkie Collins that he’d planned to review that day, in the back of his mind wondering why this lesson of all had such an enthusiastic turn out.

As if to answer that, someone stumbled through the door, raincoat plastered to their body.

“’S raining real bad.” Adam mumbled, sinking down in to a chair and shaking out his mousey brown curls.

Azira cast a glance to the football field, where he could often see his students skipping his class for a merry match. Ah.

“Well,” he buzzed with excitement. “How many of you have finished chapter 6 of The Woman in White and would like to discuss themes?”

The silence was all too familiar.

The teacher plowed on.

* * *

It was still pouring as Azira locked up the classroom. There had been a few reluctant participants in a class discussion that had slowly drifted towards women’s rights thanks to the ever persistent Pepper. It was a better class than he could have hoped for. He took out his umbrella to leave the building. Dr Fell gave the impression of a stuffy old teacher, past his time and clinging to academia by the stubborn refusal to retire. At least, that’s what his dress sense would imply. Azira was, in fact, a forty-something year old bachelor with a penchant for waistcoats and pocket watches, and tea cake as one could divine from his rounded midriff. Despite his anachronisms, he’d found himself fighting off interested parties for the better part of two decades. His warm blue eyes and halo of golden curls made the women in the staffroom do a double take. Single mothers at parent-teacher interviews showed an uncharacteristic concern for their child’s progress that often lead to the exchange of mobile numbers. He’d even had a few men approach him in a bar on occasion. It was flattering but he was decidedly uninterested in any of it. He had his books, and his birds, and occasionally a student enthusiastic about his teachings, and that was all he wanted out of life.

The umbrella sprung open as he left the building, hurrying across the dismal courtyard to where his cramped office was houses.

“Hey!” He noticed a black figure stalking through the rain, dripping wet. “Hey!” He quickened his pace to intercept the man, shoving the umbrella over his head. The man spluttered, although that might have been an attempt to expel water from his mouth.

“Where are you going?” Azira asked as they stood there in the torrential downpour. The stranger had dark sunglasses obscuring his eyes, and a mess of red hair made messier by the unwelcome soaking.

“I— I don’t know I’m looking for the McEwan building? I have no idea, Gabriel just left me—“ he trailed off. Azira huffed. Of course Gabriel would leave a guest to find his own way.

“That’s where I’m going, I’ll show you.” He pointed across the courtyard and the two of them shuffled through the rain.

When they entered the foyer, the man in black shook himself like a dog.

“Really,” Azira remarked, displeased as he folded up his umbrella and left it in the nearby stand.

He could have been a student from the way he dressed. Well, he could’ve but he’d indicated he’d already met Gabriel and had emerged unscathed so maybe he was a parent of a child?

Azira straightened his waistcoat and held out a hand.

“Dr Fell, head of English. Did you need any further directions?”

The man wiped his hands on his jacket and shook the offered hand.

“Uhhhh, I need room 108.”

Azira frowned.

“That’s a store cupboard.”

The man snorted.

“Of course it is. Well, now it’s my new office.”

Dr Fell tried to suppress his surprise and managed to rest on mildly surprised rather than extremely, which was how he felt at the other’s comment.

“Office? So you’re a teacher?”

“Guidance counsellor.” The man corrected. Azira squinted. No, he really couldn’t see the resemblance, unless this man was guiding the students to the nearest rave.

“S’alright I get it a lot.” The other seemed to notice his scrutiny. “Anthony Crowley, but you can call me Crowley. So, room 108?”

Azira nodded silently and lead the man up the gloomy corridors in a sort of daze, still unable to reconcile Crowley’s position with his demeanour.

* * *

“Lovely,” Crowley’s voice was dripping with sarcasm, as he waved through the dust that filled the room.

“Well, I’ll leave you to it. Got essays to mark.” Azira said cautiously, wondering whether he should be polite and show the other around a bit. He’d rather not. He was very busy.

Crowley grunted in reply, kicking at a pile on empty cardboard boxes.

“Hey,” the blond paused as he made to leave. “Why exactly did Dr Archangel hire a guidance counsellor? Not saying that our students don’t need one but he’s never really one to be considerate of those kinds of things.”

Crowley sighed.

“It’s a pretty specific job is what I can gather. He wants me to give career advice.”

“Oh?”

Thankfully the sunglasses hid his eyes from the chipper teacher in front of him, because he knew the next words would cut like knives.

“He’s trying to get more students to pursue science and business and the like.”

Not English. Not humanities. Not art.

“A waste of time,” Gabriel had chortled.

To his surprise, Dr Fell just nodded, face unreadable.

“That makes sense,” he shrugged his shoulders. “Dr Archangel has alway been about the greater good.” And then he left, leaving Crowley gaping like fish out of water, wondering what kind of man could sacrifice his own livelihood for anything as ridiculous as Gabriel’s “greater good”


	2. The Great Plan: 101

It took nearly three hours for him to transform the room to something passably liveable. In the process he’d accumulated a pile of empty boxes, a few dead cockroaches and some suspicious bottles of some unmarked chemical he suspected to be bleach. Lovely. Gabriel had said he could borrow a desk and any spare furniture he needed from the storage cupboards, wherever that was. If that Dr Fell were correct he was standing in the storage cupboard, and there wasn’t a desk in sight.

He sighed.

_Tough gig. _

It was his first gig, too. He’d graduated just a few months previously, not heeding the warning of his supervisor to change his look before attending interviews. Hence why, despite a dearth of guidance counsellors on this side of London, he’d had to search outer suburbia for a decent position.

He hadn’t found it and had ended up at Eden, it appeared.

“How will the kids trust me if I’m not me?” He’d snapped at Dr Tracy when she’d tried to convince him to wear a tie to his supervision. He’d chosen to go in to counselling because of what he himself had lacked during school. He strongly suspected his tumultuous upbringing would have been somewhat calmed by having a guiding influence and Eden had failed him on that front. He’d taken his final swan dive from grace in 10th form when he’d been expelled in questionable circumstances. Funnily enough, it was for the least of his crimes. He’d spent three years prior orchestrating petty crimes and student gangs, drinking on school property and asking too many blasphemous questions of his teachers (the latter was quite a scandal at Eden, still under the watchful eye of the Catholic Church.)

Nevertheless, he’d been expelled for skipping school and hiding out behind the gym with his best friend.

Crowley, now nearing thirty-five, was still a mirror of his teenage self. If a psychologist were to track him through the last few decades, they’d probably suggest he was developmentally stuck: an eighteen year old in a thirty-something year old’s body. Crowley would take this as a compliment, despite his own training. Leaving school, he bounced between bartending jobs and short-term boyfriends until a late retirement from the party scene as he surpassed thirty. Whether it was one too many bar fights, or one too few tips, Crowley wanted something more. Some kind of stability. His new “office” wasn’t much but, even in its current state, it was far cleaner and more comfortable that Crowley’s previous workplaces.

A knock at the door caused the man to startle.

“Err… sorry.” Dr Fell peered around the door. “I was about to go to lunch and I was wondering if you’d been shown the staffroom?”

Crowley scratched his head.

“Dr Archangel didn’t mention it. Are you sure I’m allowed?”

“Why on earth wouldn’t you be allowed, dear?” The blond sounded shocked, but Crowley’s brain was still caught on _dear_.

“Well, ‘m not exactly a teacher,” the self consciousness brought him back to his school days. _I’m not a teacher, I’m a fuck up. I don’t deserve to be here._

“It’s a staff room, not a teacher room.” The English teacher pointed out. Not looking to get in to an argument of semantics Crowley just nodded meekly and followed the man down the hall.

The silence as they walked was uncomfortable. Crowley could sense that the teacher had questions for him, and he silently begged him not to ask anything. He could feel the judgement emanating from the man in waves. His bright blue eyes seemed to pierce through Crowley’s mask and see straight in to his soul. Or maybe it wasn’t that well hidden, Crowley’s life was a string of missteps and he’d ended up here by accident, by luck, in any other timeline he’d be dead in a gutter or wiping down a bar. This was a bad idea. Crowley trailed after the man, glad his glasses could hide his face as tears prickled at his eyes. Yes, he was a crier, _fuck-you-very-much_, what of it? It had made him a laughing stock amongst colleagues and gang members alike (and especially in the intersection of colleagues who were also gang members.)

Dr Fell paused at a door.

“It’s just through here,”

Almost as if he knew that Crowley needed a minute, he pushed the door open and said softly “Come in when you’re ready.”

The door closed behind him, leaving Crowley standing in the empty corridor on the precipice of panic.

_Christ pull yourself together_, he growled at himself, slumping against the wall. His mind way picturing the staffroom populated with tens of Gabriel’s, all standing around smiling condescendingly. Dr Fell was there, he tried to reason. But he didn’t know the guy. He’s different. He had no evidence to support that.

Evidence, look for evidence. He told himself, taking a deep breath.

  1. You were hired for this job.
  2. They want you here. (Well, they wanted a counsellor here, he was pretty sure Gabriel had his misgivings about Crowley himself)
  3. They need a counsellor. (But what if you just stuff it up and make the kids worse,)
  4. _You’re a fuck up._ (That’s not quantitative evidence. Yes, it is. No, it’s not. It might as well be.)

There was a cough and Crowley looked around.

In front of him stood a woman with long dark hair and thick glasses. She wore a flowing skirt and was laden with jewellery. She was quite beautiful, and it freaked Crowley out.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

She was also American.

“Just wanted to ask if you were okay, you look a bit—

Hit by a train-ish.”

This caught Crowley by surprise and he couldn’t help but burst out laughing.

“That’s one way to put it,”

The woman blushed “Yeah, sorry, I’ve been told I can be painfully blunt.”

“No, I like it. Honest. I’m Crowley, the new guidance counsellor.”

He offered a hand and she took it, smiling.

“Anathema Device, history and other fraught subjects.”

“Fraught?”

“Unpopular,” she frowned. “Were you heading to the staff room?”

Suddenly feeling much more comfortable, he nodded and followed.

Miss Device (“_Anathema, please, you’re not a student_”) was a riot. She dragged Crowley to a table in the corner and introduced him to one Mr Pulsifer, who was huddled over a silver brick which he later realised was a very old laptop. Mr Pulsifer didn’t say much, but Anathema chatted away, probably glad to have an audience more responsive than the other teacher. She filled in Crowley about the current state of the school, prefacing her inherent bias. Her inherent bias, Newt had piped up, was that she was a pessimist, which Anathema quickly corrected to pragmatist.

“Besides, I’m always right.”

Crowley was inclined to believe her.

“This is the do-not-interact table.” She speculated. Crowley was surprised to see she was gesturing to their table. Surely she was making a joke. The grim look on her face indicated she perhaps wasn’t.

“That’s ridiculous!” Crowley laughed “You’re telling me the other teachers don’t want to interact with you?”

He’d yet to form a judgement on Newt who was still glaring at his computer.

“The food chain here is very simple,” she said patiently. “They are above,” she gestured at the large communal table where a lively conversation was being lead by Gabriel. “And we are below,”

“Just the two of you? That hardly sounds fair.”

“Well, there was an art teacher who quit a few weeks ago in disgust. Then there’s Dr Fell.”

Crowley sat bolt upright at the name, having forgotten about his acquaintance. He scanned the room, unable to find a puff of white blond hair.

“Oh, he doesn’t hang around in here,” Anathema waved a hand. “He’s always so swamped with work he just makes his tea and goes back to his office, poor guy.” There was genuine sympathy in her voice, and Crowley’s respect for her increased tenfold.

“Why does he have so much work?” He asked curiously. Certainly the man, all studious and decorous, struck him as a hard worker. But it seemed a bit excessive to forsake a lunch break on the regular, as Anathema had indicated.

She sighed and put her head in her hands.

“Gabriel was concerned that too many students were excited by English. Lots of rave reviews, people wanting to study Literature at university, because Dr Fell is, was, just so inspiring. He figured out a way for English to, lose it’s appeal in a way by stretching Dr Fell too thin. He got rid of the two other English teachers and now he’s the only one in the department.”

“He oversees all of the English classes in this entire school?” Crowley nearly choked on his coffee.

“And writes the curriculum,” Anathema nodded grimly. “Poor guy can’t help it that his standard of teaching has dropped because of it. Plus Gabriel doesn’t enforce attendance for the arts the way he does for ‘the important’ subjects.”

Anathema’s eyes flashed dangerously.

“If I could have a few words in private with that man—“ she began through gritted teeth.

“— You’d be out of a job in seconds flat. He’s just waiting for an excuse to get rid of us.” Newt cut in. “Besides, I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Crowley quirked an eyebrow at the man’s confession and Newt coloured slightly. Anathema missed it completely, absorbed in her fury.

“So he’s brought you here to push his agenda.” It wasn’t a personal attack, but Crowley couldn’t help but feel a little bit guilty.

“I don’t think I agree with his agenda.” The redhead began uncertainly.

“He bought you here to do a job, if you aren’t doing what he wants, you’ll be packing before you’ve even sat at your desk.”

Crowley laughed.

“I don’t even have a desk yet.”

“Don’t get too comfortable,” Newt warned, as his computer made a vague hissing sound.

“Can’t someone help Dr Fell out,” Crowley asked curiously. “I mean, how hard it is to grade some essays? Or mark some spelling tests?” Anathema gave him a dark look.

“Dr Fell is very particular about things. He doesn’t just let people waltz in and _help_.” Crowley imagined the man drowning in a stack of paperwork, tea growing steadily colder as he frantically scribbled notes on terrible terrible essays (if they were anything like what Crowley would have produced) and made a decision.

“I’m going to go talk to him about what’s going on.” He stood up. Anathema shook her head.

“Don’t distract him you’ll just make him more grumpy.” But he’d crossed over to the kitchenette and scooped up a nice looking focaccia that had been neatly laid out on a plate, its owner distracted briefly by something Gabriel was saying.

“I’m sure he won’t be grumpy about a free lunch.” Crowley smirked, pinching the plate and walking swiftly towards the door. Serves them right for excluding Anathema, and her devout fan. Besides, if Dr Fell was just running on tea, it was no wonder he was always grumpy.

* * *

“Knock knock,” Crowley cringed, did he really just say that?

He’d found Dr Fell’s office to be just around the corner from his own… cupboard. There were antique post boxes out the front of the room, overflowing with student’s work and various letters. There was one for each grade level and one labelled “other” in neat gold cursive. Hurriedly scraping the papers that had fallen up off the floor, Crowley peeked his head in as he heard a distant “come in”

It was not far off his imagination. The teacher sat at a desk buried in paperwork and various books. He didn’t have a computer, it seemed, unless it was very well buried. He looked surprised to see the visitor. Understandable, Crowley was forced to concede, he didn’t really know him.

“Oh, Mr Crowley!”

The redhead slid in to the chair opposite, shaking his head.

“No, Crowley, please. I’m not a Mr.”

Dr Fell chuckled, “Quite. It doesn’t seem to fit your whole…” he waved his hand around “…vibe, I think the kids call it these days.”

“Up with the lingo?” Crowley smirked.

“Yes, some of my students have involuntarily dragged me in to the 20th century. Kicking and screaming.”

“It’s the 21st century,”

“I’m not quite there yet,” he huffed, eyes landing on the plate in Crowley’s hand.

“Oh, I bought this for you. Saw that you didn’t get much chance to grab something to eat.”

The teacher’s face broke in to a blinding smile.

“Oh, thank you dear. I can’t quite remember the last time I’ve had time for lunch. As it is I’m usually eating dinner at my desk.” He graciously took the plate. “What’s on it?”

“Ah, it’s a surprise!” Crowley smiled weakly, hoping it was a pleasant one. It at least looked half decent, that was why it had caught his eye.

Dr Fell hummed happily and took a bite.

“Oh! Chicken pesto, how lovely.”

“Yeah, brought a spare,” Crowley said weakly, strangely entranced by watching the other man eat. Snap out of it!

“I was talking to Miss Device in the staffroom.”

Dr Fell immediately brightened.

“Anathema is one of the finest, most passionate teachers this school has ever seen.” He gushed.

“I don’t doubt it,” Crowley agreed, leaning forward slightly. “So why don’t the other teachers talk to her? Talk to you?” He already knew the answer, but he wanted to hear the professor say it.

“We’re not part of the great plan,” he replied, somewhat matter-of-factly, and took another bite of the sandwich.

“The great—?” Crowley made an ugly noise and threw up his hands in frustration “What on earth is wrong with this place? It’s like a cult. A cult of psycho maths teachers trying to push quantum physics down students’ throats! And do they actually call it the great plan? Good grief.” He had a few stronger words but rightly got the impression that Dr Fell wouldn’t want to hear them.

“Firstly,” Dr Fell put down his meal, dabbing at his mouth with a napkin that had appeared from nowhere. “They might be pushing Calculus but I think you’ll find Mr Hastur is the one pushing quantum physics. Well, and the rest of the physics department.”

“So there’s a one-man English department and you’ve got a whole bunch of people teaching that mind-numbing shit?” Oh, the stronger words were slipping out now.

The teacher frowned.

“Physics is very important. Dr Archangel says—“

“Fuck what Gabriel says!” Dr Fell flinched “Are you honestly going to tell me that your subject is inferior to Mr Hastur’s dumb gravity experiments—“

“It’s not inferior,” he defending hotly “I never said that. It’s just that it’s unnecessary,” he made a noise like a wounded animal as he surveyed the texts scattered on his desk.

“You don’t ask questions around here.”

“So I’ve heard,” Crowley growled.

“Then stop asking me these things!” The professor sat back in his chair, as if trying to put as much space between himself and Crowley as possible. “It’s not right!”

Arms folded and blue eyes strayed to the door. Crowley could take a hint.

“Right, fine. Well, if you change your mind, I will be in my… office.” He stood up and shrugged “I think you deserve better. I think that the students should be able to decide what interests them, and it should be a fair playing field. You’re up to your ears in work, by design. I’m here to stop students liking your subject, by design. What I’m saying is, I don’t want to do this. I think you and I need to work out how we can change things. Form a little arrangement of sorts.” Dr Fell wouldn’t make eye contact, worrying his sleeve as Crowley monologued. Crowley paused and let the silence stretch out, inadvertently holding his breath in wait of an answer.

“Please leave,” the blond said quietly, and went back to his grading, half finished sandwich abandoned next to him.

“Right,” Crowley muttered, closing the door behind him and trailing back to his own room, wondering just why that rejection had stung so much.


	3. Only One Counsellor Allowed

Anathema had helped him find a desk and a few ragged chairs for his office, but it still radiated “depressed, broke student dorm” which was definitely a vibe Crowley was familiar with, but hardly appropriate for his job. He vaguely announced he was going to make some changes to the room in Dr Archangel’s presence. The man hadn’t even looked up from his phone, just muttering “not from the budget”, Crowley took that as a blessing to move his plants in.

“What on earth?”

Crowley couldn’t see who was speaking passed the large fern he was hauling through the corridor, but the voice was familiar, it was a voice (and a face) that had been pointedly ignoring him since that day in their office. The redhead let go of the pot, so that it landed on the ground with a small thump and dusted off his hands.

“Plants,” he said intelligently, proudly, grinning like a maniac at the English teacher.

“I can see that,” Dr Fell replied.

“No, no, you see research has shown time and time again that plants help alleviate anxiety and depression. It makes an environment better for talking and stuff. So I’m putting my favourites in the office.”

“Your favourites?” The teacher had a hint of a smile pulling at his lips “How many do you have?”

“Hundreds!” Crowley exclaimed eagerly “I have a whole green house at home, well, my home is the greenhouse I mostly keep them inside. They like being talked to, in fact most of the time they’re the only ones who will put up with me talking. They’re great friends.”

Maybe he’d gotten a bit carried away with the details there, as he wont to do when talking about his hobby, but was surprised to see a frown crease Dr Fell’s face.

“Friends, dear? Why on earth do you think your human friends don’t put up with you?”

Crowley couldn’t hold back the hollow laugh.

“What human friends?” He said helplessly, regretting it the instant the other’s face crumpled. He inwardly cursed himself, why was he letting this random person psychoanalyse him in the middle of a deserted hallway? Why was he so readily pouring his secrets, his vulnerabilities in this kindly teacher’s ear?

Because he wanted Dr Fell to trust him, and he would reopen every wound and point it out with care if it meant that the man trusted him that tiny bit more, to get him on side, so that he could start to make some real changes in this school. Stuff the greater good.

There was numerous flaws to this line of thinking, but Crowley wasn’t here to counsel himself and he’d upheld a long tradition of doing precisely the opposite of whatever he’d recommend to a client.

To his surprise, the teacher rolled up his sleeves and lifted up the plant, letting it rest on one hip in a spectacular display of strength.

From behind the stray fronds, blue eyes levelled Crowley with a fierce stare.

“I’m sorry, but that’s — as my students would say — absolute bullshit. I haven’t known you very long, but I can’t see anybody not liking you Mr Crowley.”

“Crowley—“ the other replied weakly.

“Crowley. And if you can’t find any other friends to talk to, you’ll have to settle for me.” The blond marched off in the direction of Crowley’s office, carrying the fern as effortlessly as if it were a loaf of bread.

Crowley’s brain buffered.

As much as he wanted to reject the words, Dr Fell couldn’t say anything without the upmost sincerity and so the man let his comments wash over him.

_I can’t see anybody not liking you_

If it were anyone else, perhaps even Anathema, whom he’d grown quite close to over the last week, he would have laughed at the obvious joke they were making.

But this was Dr Fell: strange, timid, quirky mannerisms and kind eyes. For some reason, it made Crowley’s heart flutter slightly.

_Oh for god’s sake, you don’t even know the man!_ He trailed back to his office. Besides he’s either taken or seriously repressed or married to his work — actually, definitely the latter. He could feel the embarrassing beginnings of a schoolyard crush rising in his chest, and he furiously tried to beat it down.

_You’re a fuck up._ He told himself and this was quite becoming his mantra. It did the job, extinguishing the flame of curiosity as quickly as it crept up on him with a heavy dousing of self loathing. Good. He squared his shoulders and entered room 108.

Dr Fell was knelt down in the corner of the room, having set the fern in the small sliver of sunlight that peeked through the skylight. He was talking to the plant. Singing its praises, in fact, and Crowley found himself mentally preparing another bucket of self loathing lest this small show of affection awaken anything in him.

“You aren’t supposed to compliment them,” he said, shoving his hands in to his pockets.

The teacher looked up, amused.

“What are you supposed to do?”

“I vent to them,” Crowley admitted. In point of actual fact, Crowley was too proud to admit that maybe he needed to talk to a professional about his own issues, but was happy to pay a few hundred dollars for a rare fiddle leaf plant that didn’t tell him to practise mindfulness to control his anger. The blond hummed.

“Sounds like a maladaptive coping mechanism to me.”

Crowley froze, shooting a glare at him. Dr Fell’s eyes twinkled with mischief.

“You can’t honestly believe that I’ve been a teacher for 15 years and don’t know the basic tenets of psychology, dear.”

“Okay, sounds fair. Tell me about yourself.” Crowley lounged against his new desk and pointed to one of his ragged chairs. Dr Fell took a seat.

“You’re not going to counsel me, are you?” He said warily.

Crowley had to laugh.

“Isn’t it you who’s doing the counselling?”

Dr Fell gave a wry smile.

“Sorry, dear. Force of habit. All these years of students not telling me anything one learns to be perceptive.”

The teacher stared off in to the distance.

“There’s not much to tell, really.” He shrugged. “I’ve worked here 15 years. I like it. I like what I teach. I like the students who bother to turn up.”

Crowley pulled his feet up so that he was sitting cross legged on the desk. This seemed to take the other by surprise and he stopped talking.

“You like it?” Crowley tried his best not to sound condescending, but it was near impossible. He didn’t want the conversation to drift towards what they’d talked about in Dr Fell’s office the other day, but he was struggling to reconcile how much the teacher was trapped in his work and in denial. “Dr Fell, I’m sorry but it doesn’t take a psychology degree to tell that you’ve got too much on your plate.”

“Azira, please.” The blond worried the cuff of his dress shirt. “Besides, it’s what the school needs from me. It’s for—“

“I swear to god if you say “the greater good” one more time you’ll be banned from my office.” Crowley hissed through gritted teeth. The other man laughed awkwardly.

“Fine, it’s not ideal, I’ll admit. But I can live with it.”

“Not ideal? Doesn’t it make you angry? Doesn’t it make you want to punch Gabriel in his smarmy face every time you see him?”

Azira flinched.

“You can’t come in here and say things like that,” he said quietly. Sensing the tension rising, Crowley quickly back-pedalled.

“You’re right, I’m sorry. How about your life outside of work… do you have a family? Hobbies? A partner?”

Real fucking subtle.

Azira regarded him blankly, as if these were foreign concepts. They definitely were.

Crowley sighed.

“Do you ever just take some time off and go out for dinner or something? Anything?” He sounded desperate, heart sinking as the blond shook his heart mournfully.

“Right,” without thinking things through, Crowley leapt off the desk and grabbed his coat. “Do you want to go out for lunch?”

“Now?” Azira bit his lip. “I couldn’t possibly. I have the progress reports to write and then I was planning on preparing some notes before my 2pm class and then—“

Crowley cut through the rambling.

“We’ll prepare some notes whilst we’re at lunch. Do you like sushi?”

There it was, a beaming smile that Crowley could bathe in for eons.

“I suppose, it couldn’t hurt.” Azira could barely contain his excitement. “Hold on, I’ll just grab my stuff.” He scuttled from the room, leaving Crowley grinning like an idiot. He’d found a way to this man’s heart. He’d take the English teacher to lunch thrice a day if it meant seeing that smile again and again. He secretly hoped to build the kind of trust that would get him on side, to push for some changes in Eden.

The counsellor told himself firmly that was his only intention. Years of lying to himself had him believe it too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all the lovely comments so far 💕
> 
> I very vaguely hinted to Azira keeping birds, y’all ready to meet his pigeons?! Yes they may get a whole chapter to themselves, it’ll be a bonus chapter ‘cause I’m soft.


	4. Bird Brain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Azira talks to birds, maybe he's crazy but they seem to talk back

“Aren’t you a sweet thing?” Azira beamed “An absolute darling. Seeing you is the best part of my day.”

_Hold your horses, reader. Don’t get too ahead of yourself._

Or perhaps it’s better to phrase it “Hold your pigeons”, because that is exactly what Azira is currently doing.

So maybe he lied a little when he told Crowley that he didn’t have any hobbies. Or maybe he didn’t. He didn’t see the pigeons he kept as a “hobby”, rather, a found family of sorts.

His pigeons, strangely enough, had come as part of the house. It went something like:

_“Oh hey, I’m going to sell my house but I’m going to neglect to mention that I have a giant aivery out the back and, oh yeah, I’m not going to take the birds with me.”_

Azira was put out for all of two minutes, until he met the pigeons himself.

He currently had Sesame, a white German owl, settled on his shoulder, trying to intertwine herself with his scarf. She was the most friendly of the bunch, and would perch on his shoulder as he went about the household chores. Sometimes even watching him grade papers from atop his desk lamp. There was Ren who was a fiery clay colour that reminded him of the guidance counsellor who’d graciously taken him out for lunch the week before. Crowley would like to meet her, he found himself thinking, and he blushed at how forward that was. Too fast. It was like introducing the man to his parents (who were well out of the picture, but the birds were judgemental enough to suffice.)

Pickwick and Bean were both grey with an iridescent purple sheen. Azira could tell them apart easily, despite their appearance. Bean was an unstoppable force who spent most of her time bouncing between their three perches, barely letting their feet touch the wood before zooming to the next. Bean was named after the coffee bean and Azira found himself mindful to keep his own coffee away from the bird, it was impossible to imagine what caffeine would do the his girl.

Tessie was petite with a smattering of caramel coloured spots. She tended to tail Ren. Tail in the sense “to follow” and tail as in “she spent a lot of time trying to steal feathers from the other’s tail.” Then Nemo, whose presence in the space had earned her the title of Captain Nemo. Finally, Abby, the little demonic spirit. Abby was black and white and spent most of her time trying to tear down the wire fence, despite being let out for a fly twice a day. Azira had taken out his earring since the bird had a tendency to nibble at it. She was the problem child he’d never planned to have (not that he had planned to have any children, for that matter), but he loved her all the same.

He clicked his tongue and Sesame reluctantly returned to her nesting box. The sun was nearly up, a cue that Azira needed to head out to work. He was already dressed, his girls knew better than to soil his neat coat and dress shirt ensemble, especially on a Monday, especially given the circumstances. The birds were his diary and were privy to anything that Azira might, if he had time, write in a little notebook that lived under his pillow. Birds were the ideal confidents. They were incapable of rolling their eyes (although Abby had perfected the stink eye) and tended to coo in reassurance whenever Azira spoke, even if he was venting about certain members of staff. Especially if he was venting about members of staff. So when he barged in one day last week, opening with a “you’ll never believe the day I had”, they put on their best listening faces, expecting another diatribe about what some Gabriel Archangel has done now. But there was a hint of fondness in their owners voice.

That was when they heard about Crowley, and did their best not to get jealous: When was the last time Azira had taken them to a fancy sushi restaurant on a whim?

“He’s supposed to be guiding the students away from liking the arts. Tempting them.” He sighed, settling down on the small armchair he kept next to their nest (and by golly they knew not to soil that either, these were the best pigeons.) “But he won’t do his job. He won’t stop talking about making changes, and supporting the students to make their own choices, and oh, isn’t that what teaching is supposed to be about?” He slumped in the chair “That’s what I thought teaching was about before I got to Eden. But they have such a…” totalitarian regime “…an idea about how the world works. For the greater good. Gabriel says it’s what’s best for the students, getting them interested in the subjects that will get them employment and I want to believe that. But I didn’t study literature thinking about my career, I studied it because I loved it and look at me. I’m happy.” He paused, doubt creeping in. Was he happy? On paper he should be. He’d secured a job less than a month after completing his masters, never mind that he’d spent 3 years working at a library whilst completing his PhD, because he didn’t mind, in fact, he loved it. He remembered Dr Archangel’s little sneer at the blond’s resume,

“You’re moving up the ranks,” he’d said, tone steeped in condescension.

No, he didn’t have happiness. He had a job. They weren’t quite the same thing. He had a job that he was supposed to love, and would, if it wasn’t spent drowning in paperwork and pleading with students to attend his classes. What else? What else did he have?

There was a soft coo, as if Sesame had read his thoughts and was reminding him at the 7 eager faces that peered back at him.

“Yes, dear. I do love you.” He’d smiled wanly, and felt guilty in thinking that this wasn’t enough.

* * *

Crowley had driven them to the restaurant in a gleaming vintage car that Azira couldn’t help but gush over.

“It’s the only one of it’s kind in England,” the redhead had smiled proudly. The teacher wasn’t quite sure how it was still in such pristine condition given the man’s reckless driving, but he managed to keep quiet most of the drive (save a few involuntarily squeaks as they veered around corners at breakneck speed.) Maybe it was the aftermath of a stomach churning drive but Azira couldn’t quite settle in the restaurant. His heart was in his throat, butterflies ghosting in his chest. Crowley wasn’t much of a big eater, and the teacher could’ve deduced as much, but that didn’t prepare the teacher for the intensity of his stare as Azira ate.

The blond had flushed and trained his eyes on the plate between them.

“So what do you like?” His companion asked. Azira froze, mind going blank. What kind of question was that?

“I like sushi,” he said weakly. This caused Crowley to chuckle.

“Then I made the right choice,”

“Quite. Actually I learnt Japanese at university and took a particular interest in their cuisine. It’s my favourite.” Azira supplied “Did you ask Anathema?’ He followed up suspiciously. They’d gone to a restaurant that wasn’t exactly close to the school, almost as if Crowley had been going out of his way.

He smirked behind the dark glasses and reclined slightly in his chair.

“Called it a counsellor’s intuition. You get very good at reading people. You’re all like an open book.”

Azira hummed and didn’t point out that he had a menu for this restaurant pinned to the cork board in his office.

“Well, you’re not an open book. Maybe like a closed book with the pages glued together and a lock on the front.” He countered, popping a piece of maki in his mouth and staring at the counsellor, who didn’t argue, just giving a resigned shrug.

“Can’t help it. Shit life.” And why did he keep doing that? It was something about the soft face and caring eyes that made Crowley pour out his secrets in to this man’s waiting hands. Azira didn’t reply, just played around with the bottle of soy sauce and Crowley felt compelled to break the silence, certain the bastard knew what he was doing. It was a source of pride that Crowley thought himself immune to psychological tactics but, then, he also refused to take his own advice. He was human, and weak, after all.

“I actually went to Eden myself, got kicked out though. Fell in to some bad habits and bad crowds.”

Azira looked up, surprise painted on his soft features.

“But here you are,” he said, with a hint of admiration which made the redhead squirm.

“Ngk, yeah I guess,”

He’d expected the teacher to push for specifics, ask all of the difficult questions and gritty details. Would he tell the man that he was expelled for being gay? How he and his best friend Lucian were caught making out behind the gym and the man he’d dreamed of marrying (he was 16 and idealistic, okay?) had turned and claimed that Crowley had assaulted him. He wouldn’t willingly kiss someone as depraved as Crowley. Crowley had tricked him. Judgement was swift and Crowley had emptied his locker by the end of the school day. Bitter and hurt, he’d tracked Lucian down online, now a big corporate lawyer. Married to his stunning blonde secretary, as if to erase the missteps of youth.

“So you want to help people like you?”

Crowley frowned before realising Azira meant “wayward teens” not “falsely accused sexual assault perpetrators.”

“S’the least I can do. I would’ve liked someone to help me out when I was in school, to tell me everything was okay. That I was okay.”

“Do you have someone now… to tell you?” The teacher asked softly and Crowley felt pinned by his piercing blue stare.

“Uhh— I’m still in contact with my supervisor from uni,” he said weakly. In all honestly, Dr Tracy was the only contact in his phone that he’d rung in the last 6 months, and that had been because he was minding her cat.

He didn’t like the way Azira wilted at these words. By god, how on earth could someone be so empathic for a stranger he barely knew? A strange who’d gained his trust just by taking him out for sushi? That’s when something in Crowley cottoned on to the distinct lack in Dr Fell’s life. He was as lonely as the redhead was, and Crowley had barged in to his like (and his office), uninvited and had refused to leave. Under normal circumstances he’d feel quite guilty for forcing a friendship with the man, but the blond had significantly brightened in their last hour together and a small part of him reasoned that his company was actually appreciated. What a novel concept.

As they talked, the teacher warmed even more and Crowley began to realise they actually had quite a bit in common.

Well, they were quite concerned about the welfare of their charges, which was more than he could say for most of the staff he’d encountered.

Azira already had a handful of students he wanted to refer to Crowley for one reason or another. Mostly due to the ever vague there’s “something wrong”, though some of them were more open with the English teacher.

“Respecting confidentiality, I do have a handful of kids with issues at home, and a few questioning their sexuality. The latter isn’t well accepted at Eden.”

Crowley snorted in to his sake and his companion gave him a strange look.

“I figured,” he said hastily “Gabriel doesn’t seem like the type to fly the rainbow flag,”

Azira made a face of agreement but refrained from speaking ill of his superior.

Maybe it was the sake that clouded his judgement, but Crowley found him proposing his plan again. His arrangement. He went even further to ask if he could help Dr Fell get his work sorted so that he had more time to focus on preparing for classes (and sleeping, it seemed that he didn’t do much.) Azira instinctively withdrew in to his shell at the treasonous ideas, but he didn’t cut the counsellor off, didn’t get up and leave (partially because he didn’t want to leave the other with the bill and maybe Crowley had planned it like this, knowing the teacher was too polite to storm off.) He just listened with a neutral expression on his face, despite how much he felt like nodding his head along with what the redhead was saying. He agreed with everything, but that didn’t make it the right thing to do.

He thought of Pepper, who had confided that she wanted to study linguistics and Russian literature, but was laden down with brochures for engineering. The way her mother had glowered at the suggestion that her daughter had a future as a writer during parent-teacher interviews. The amount of times he’d find English worksheets in the recycling bin outside his classroom.

It was enough to just give up and stop trying. Alternatively, it was enough to given in to what Crowley was proposing. Ultimately, it was too much to even being to entertain and Azira downed some saki in an attempt to get rid of the headache it gave him.

* * *

Azira tried to leave for work, but Abby swooped down and started wrestling with his bowtie, as if to stop him leaving.

“Yes, okay, thank you. It’s straight.” He snapped.

Abby clicked her beak in response.

“Are you trying to tell me that I’m being silly?”

Abby glared.

“That I should consider what Mr Crowley said? That maybe, just maybe, we shouldn’t be blindly following the greater good?”

He swore Abby nodded her little head.

“Fine, I’ll talk to him,” the blond sniffed “You temptress,” he brushed the bird off of his shoulder and locked the door behind him.

Abby watched her own retreat, wondering if he’d gotten the hint:

She wanted sunflower seeds for dinner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I just spend a chapter introducing you to my pigeons? Yes, yes I did.


	5. In This Century

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *frantically posts chapter with laptop at 1%* obvs not proofread, sorry guys, gotta zoom!

Azira shuffled toward Room 108 with a pile of tests in hand.

“Ah, Crowley I was wondering if you’d be able to give me a little hand with marking?” He asked tentatively. The counsellor, who had been searching for a powerpoint in amongst his jungle (there were none), looked up and beamed.

“Of course,” he said “What fresh hell have you subject those poor kids to today?”

“It’s just a spelling test.” Azira rolled his eyes “I have the answer sheet for you too, it’s just on top.”

“I can spell, angel,” Crowley snorted, taking the sheaf of paper. “Ah, fuck.” He turned beet red as the pet name slipped out, but the teacher only looked vaguely amused.

“Your name, it’s like the angel in the story of creation. The Guardian of the Eastern Gate of Eden.” Crowley swallowed tentatively.

“Yeah, the one who fucked up and let the serpent in.” Azira chuckled “That’s the one.”

The counsellor gaped as the obscenity fell from the blond’s lips, and he felt a heat rising in his chest that had nothing to do with his little misstep. Crowley was plunging towards an infatuation with the teacher, and with him swearing like that, the redhead was a goner.

“Language!” He said mockingly, throwing a paperclip in the other’s direction.

“Yes, English and Language is what I teach.” Azira replied proudly. The bastard.

“I always say that, when used judiciously, explicatives help emphasise one’s point.”

“And your point was, the angel stuffed up?” Crowley wasn’t sure why his mouth suddenly couldn’t form the words. Maybe because his mind was off dancing around salacious thoughts as it were. “I don’t think that’s the point of it.”

Azira quirked an eyebrow.

“I always read it like the angel knew what he was doing, that he turned a blind eye to the serpent’s temptations to liberate Adam and Eve from the garden. He saw the serpent and he saw knowledge, curiosity and questions, so many questions, and just let him past.”

Azira opened his mouth as if to argue, but there was a knock on the door.

“Come in!” Crowley called. Dr Archangel entered. The counsellor wondered if it was too late to retract the invitation.

“Oh, sorry to interrupt an intimate moment.” Gabriel’s face was comically shocked.

Crowley glared and Azira frowned. There was two metres and a shabby desk between the men, hardly intimate. Then Crowley’s eyes fell on the folder, old and decaying, in the principal’s hand.

**Crowley, Anthony**

Oh fuck.

“I just need a few moments with our new counsellor.”

Azira nodded and went to leave.

No, please don’t go. Crowley’s brain whined. Please, just set the building on fire. Something. Anything. He didn’t want to have this conversation, least of all with Gabriel.

The teacher closed the door behind him.

“Well,” Gabriel’s teeth bared in what was likely an attempt at a smile, “We have a bit to chat about.”

Crowley grunted and lowered his sunglasses back over his eyes. He was fine to take them off at Azira’s request, but he couldn’t possibly face the principal without them.

Gabriel screwed up his nose as he took a seat in the tattered armchair, whether it was at the other’s attire or the state of the room was anyone’s guess. Crowley could safely guess it was probably both.

“I did a bit of digging.” Of course you did. “You see, I was a little concerned about what kind of influence a high school drop out would have on our students.”

“I did actually complete high school.” Crowley pointed out dryly. He’d just gone to the high school in the next town over.

“But you didn’t here,” Gabriel retorted, “and for very good reason.”

He pulled out a grubby looking form that outlined Crowley’s expulsion, way back in ’99.

“Yup,” Crowley kicked his boots up on to the desk.

“You’re gay.” It was a statement. It was decidedly untrue.

“I’m pansexual, actually.”

Gabriel cringed.

“I’m afraid Mary wasn’t aware of this influence when completing your contract.”

“Oh, I’m sure she’s aware. I would’ve told her if she’d asked. But not to worry, she’s still got a shot.” Crowley lifted his sunglasses and gave the principal an exaggerated wink. If he was going to be kicked out in less than a week, he’d set these bridges blazing. Of course…

“I don’t think it’s exactly legal, at least not in this century, to factor in sexuality when choosing your workforce. One might go as far to say that denying a job based on such a fact was discrimination.”

Gabriel’s face twitched.

“We don’t have a problem with your orientation.” He sniffed delicately “It’s the kids that you’re advising that I’m worried about. Tempting them in to your ways.”

Crowley smirked, noting the principal’s subtle shift from “we” to “I.”

“Sorry, I’m not interested in corrupting kids.” He replied blandly, wondering just how far these accusations would go.

“Maybe not,” Gabriel hissed “But if I see one rainbow, one pride pin, one whiff of Mardi Gras, I’m shutting this whole operation down. You’re here to tell the students what to study, not how to sin.”

Crowley’s breath caught in his throat. He was aware that he was shaking as the larger man towered over him. In an instant, it was over, and Gabriel was straightening his jacket with a curt “We’ll be in touch,” before leaving.

Crowley bent over, head between his knees, gasping for air. It had been years since he’d had a panic attack and he wasn’t about to break that streak based on what that homophobic arsehole threatened him with.

“I’m sorry Elisha,” He whispered to the potted fiddle leaf fig nearest his boots, mindful that there was a likely chance he was going to vomit and they were in the line of fire.

“Who’s Elisha?” A voice asked curiously and Crowley startled, banging his head on the desk.

“Oh dear, I’m so sorry I just wanted to check that you were okay. Gabriel looked awfully angry.” Azira rushed around the desk and knelt beside the counsellor. The pain in his head mingled with the staggered breathing and Crowley couldn’t help but burst in to tears.

Perfect. The first person to cry in his office was himself.

He slid out of the chair to anchor himself to the ground.

“I’m sorry, you don’t have to see this, go.” Crowley wept, but instead of retreating footsteps he felt a warm hand on his back.

“Why would I do that?” Azira had lowered himself to the ground beside the man.

“S’dusty,” Crowley said feebly “You’ll get your clothes dusty,”

Azira ignored him and started rubbing circles on his back instead.

“Do you want to talk about it, or do you want to be distracted from it?” The teacher asked him and Crowley couldn’t help a weak smile.

“Hey, that’s my line.” He murmured.

“Everyone gets their time to talk.”

“Ngk,” Crowley pulled his knees closer to him, before realising that the teacher was actually waiting for an answer. He actually genuinely cared.

This guy was weird.

“Maybe the first one, if it won’t freak you out too much.” Crowley stammered, he was so close to the teacher he could see the worn fabric of the waistcoat, the shabby pocket watch, the blatant marks of a man out of time and wondered why the ever-loving fuck he would be receptive to what Crowley had to say.

Because he cares, his brain supplied.

Stop giving me evidence, he found himself arguing back, I just want to curl up and die alone.

With a deep breath he began talking.

To his upmost surprise, the teacher didn’t recoil when he mentioned his sexuality. Nor did he make a noise of disgust when Crowley revealed why he was expelled. Or rather, he did make a noise of disgust as the redhead told of the lie that Lucian told to save his skin.

“I’m so sorry that had to happen to you,” he seemed sincere. Crowley didn’t want to make eye contact, because he knew the sincerity floating in those blue eyes might dissolve him in to a fresh round of tears. “And I’m absolutely livid by what Gabriel is trying to imply. He’s— he’s— a terrible principal,” Azira stammered.

Crowley laughed.

“Strong words there,”

“You know what I mean.”

They fell in to silence. Crowley’s breathing was slowly getting back under control, tears drying up. He was feeling more grounded. Doubly so by the warm hand still resting on his back.

“I think, in light of everything.” The teacher began cautiously “I have been considering this quite a bit and I think in light of everything. I think I want to.”

Crowley frowned and peeled him glasses off so that his companion could see the frown.

“Oh, I’m quite sorry that needs context! The arrangement, the one you proposed the other day, after which I so rudely turned you away, I think we should do it.” His mouth was set in a determined line, free hand clenched in to a fist.

“We don’t need another generation treated the way you were, and the world needs a workforce that knows the difference between affect and effect whether Gabriel thinks so or not!”

Crowley couldn’t help but smile at this assertion.

“Oh, angel, this is Elisha.” He pushed the pot towards the blond, smile widening at the man cooed at the little plant.

This guy was weird and it was Crowley’s kind of weird.


	6. Absent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pepper goes missing. Teachers drink on school property on the daily.

“Where’s Pepper?”

Dr Fell peered up from his roll at the particularly dismal attendance.

Surprisingly, her best friend, Adam Young shrugged, “Dunno,”

Azira frowned, skimming back through the months. Pepper had never been one to miss English. In fact, he’d gotten the sense that the classes had been the highlight of her timetable, the way she would bounce in piled high with feminist literature and a biting tongue for anyone who dared praise the genius of old white men.

He delivered his material on autopilot, instinctively pausing for Pepper’s witty remarks and being met with silence.

“Adam, wait!” The boy paused as he gathered his things and waited for the other four students to file out.

To Dr Fell’s surprise the kid wouldn’t meet his eye, choosing to stare at the front cover of his novel like it was a veritable Monet rather than a glaringly orange penguin classic.

“I don’t know,” he burst out, voice carrying the anguish that Azira didn’t need eye contact to make out. “She started skipping classes to go to the library. At first it was just Maths because she got in to an argument with Ms Dagon, then she justified that she didn’t need Science to do what she wanted and stopped going to that. She would never skip English.” His voice wavered “She wouldn’t.”

The teacher took in the concerned expression on his face.

“D’you know what’s really going on?” He’d been teaching long enough to know that someone like Pepper wasn’t being truant for fun, or out of laziness. Adam nodded but didn’t answer.

“Should I ask her myself?” The blond followed up.

“Yes, please.” Adam’s green eyes finally raised to look at his teacher, and they were rimmed with tears. “I don’t know what to do.” He whispered and scraped the rest of his books off of the desk and hurried out.

Swallowing heavily, Azira checked his watch. It was lunchtime. He needed to find Crowley.

* * *

There he was, on the little island of outcasts, laughing with Anathema as Newton’s computer made a noise reminisce of a chainsaw.

“I just pressed the **esc** button!” He was insisting “It’s got a mind of it’s own.”

“And a grudge,” Anathema cackled, sobering up when she saw the look on Azira’s face. He shook his head, stomach churning. As much as he wanted to hold a community forum, he couldn’t violate Pepper’s privacy, this was Crowley’s domain and his only.

“I need to talk to you. In your office.” He said firmly, and Crowley jumped up instantly.

“Is everything okay?”

Azira made a vague approximation of “no” with his features.

In an instant, Crowley had scooped up his jacket and was leading the teacher towards the door, hand resting lightly on the small of his back.

It was stupid really, he was probably overreacting. Kids skipped class all of the time, and it was hardly news that someone with skipping English. If he went to any other staff member (except, perhaps, Anathema) with his concern, he’d be laughed off campus. He was aware that the other teacher’s liked to remind the students of their subjects superiority whilst teacher, the school had devolved in to some strange class system whereby the English department (in it’s 1 person entirety) had the respect of plebeian.

It occurred to him that maybe the others had gotten under Pepper’s skin, that she’d decided to yield to the pressure and get that degree in engineering her mother was always ranting about. That would be a reason to stop going to English classes. But no, Adam had said that she’d been skipping maths and science, hardly the behaviour of someone who’d recently decided on their career aspirations in STEM.

“Don’t laugh,” He prefaced, as they took their seats in Crowley’s office. The redhead’s face suggested he would do anything but. For a brief moment, Azira was overcome with fear and gratitude. This acquaintance— friend— whom he’d known for all of a fortnight, looked positively terrifying sitting before him. Like the thought of everything not being okay for Azira was the end of the world, and he was hellbent on putting a stop to it.

“It’s not me,” the teacher supplied hurriedly, and the features relaxed a little. “It’s one of my students. She’s started skipping my classes.”

He involuntarily tensed, waiting for the counsellor to laugh. Instead he sat forward in his chair, face steeped in concern.

“How long has this been going on?”

“Just today,” suddenly, Azira felt silly, realising that maybe she was just feeling under the weather and needed a break. But Adam had seemed to indicate something bigger was going on.

Crowley was sorting through the files in a drawer.

“Pepper Moonchild,” Azira said, and long spidery fingers extracted a slim file.

“A perfect student,” he commented, flicking through the pages. Azira grinned. He knew Pepper was far from the perfect student by Eden’s standards. Her file was filled with reports of defiance, being too loud and too persistent for administration to handle, reports of “vandalism” with the antifascist posters she’d pasted to the school gates, a small sticky note complaining of how she’d “disrespected” (read: sassed) Dr Hastur. And yet, Azira believed that Crowley, in all his wisdom, wasn’t being sarcastic as he admired her file. She was a free spirit. She knew what she wanted and called out injustice when she saw it.

“I’ll have a chat to her. Don’t worry.” He set the file down and peered over his sunglasses.

“Now, angel. I believe we have some plans of our own to attend to,”

There was a whooshing in his ears - like one of his pigeons taking flight - at the words. He almost looked around for the source of the noise, before realising his head was playing tricks on him. It was quite literally the sound of his heart soaring.

* * *

Planning to overthrow the school hierarchy from the comfort of Dr Fell’s office was surprisingly relaxing. It helped that they’d opened a bottle of wine (and yes, the teacher was prone to drinking on school property, it was a hazard of the immense workload) to aid their scheming. Azira was listing off the students that he thought actually enjoyed his classes, or would if he was able to give them more attention.

Crowley was scrawling them down on the back of a worksheet he’d grabbed from the desk (“One less student suffering,” “Crowley, that’s the master copy!” “A whole class less suffering then,”)

“You’ve got quite a few,” he mused and Azira swelled with pride. This was the first time he’d acknowledge that there were, indeed, students who not only showed promise in his subject but also could, with a little tinkering, actually enjoy his teaching. It was the kind of thing he’d looked forward to in grad school, and dreamed about in his early years at Eden.

“What I’ll do, is I’ll have an advisory meeting with them, get an idea of what they enjoy and what they want to do. If they seem amenable, I’ll start encouraging them to look in to options in the arts.”

“If they’re on the fence, my door is always open,” Azira added.

Crowley squinted at the closed door.

“It’s an expression!” The teacher exclaimed, nearly spilling wine on his schedule. The counsellor hummed and wrote something else down.

“Dr Fell happy to advise students how under appreciated you can be if you pursue a career in academia” he read out slowly.t

The teacher found a blush rising in his cheeks.

“I’m not under appreciated,” he protested “I’m just selectively appreciated.”

Crowley’s lips quirked.

“That’s a way to put it.”

“I have plenty of people who appreciate my work,”

“Mmm?”

“You, for example.”

Crowley nodded slowly, “But I’m just an observant outsider."

“— Anathema.”

“Another outsider,”

Azira floundered and found the well worn phrase (that he never actually uttered out loud) spilling out.

“Well, my family appreciates me.”

Crowley froze, pencil in the air, face unreadable behind his glasses.

“I’m sure they do,” he said quietly, and seemed to curl in on himself. The wine found its way to the desk and suddenly the counsellor was sitting very much like a professional and very much not like Crowley.

“Well, I’ll follow these names up. Should probably ask Anathema for a similar list, she probably has her eye on a few students. I reckon we could trust her to know about what we’re doing.”

A bit confused by the sudden shift in tone, Azira just nodded slowly.

“And I’ll just—“

There was an abrupt knock at the door that sent the two scrambling to hide their glasses.

“Oh relax,” Anathema rolled her eyes as she slipped through the door. “I came for some, good doctor. Though I am a bit disappointed you’ve already found replaced me as drinking buddy.” She shot a wicked grin in Crowley’s direction, waggling her eyebrows in a way that made Crowley even more embarrassed.

‘Well, I was just going.” He grabbed his list and skirted around the history teacher. “See you around!”

The door closed behind him and Anathema gave the blond a questioning stare.

“What the fuck was that? Is it me?”

Azira shrugged.

“I don’t think so dear. We were just talking and his demeanour just suddenly changed. It was quite odd. But I do need to tell you about our plan.”

“Our plan?” Anathema sunk in to the recently vacated seat and made quick work of draining the rest of Crowley’s wine.

“Would that plan be a date between the two of you?” She said mildly, causing the teacher to splutter in to his glass.

“What?”

Anathema rolled her eyes.

“Oh, please. Everyone who’s got eyes can see the way you look at each other.”

Azira paused, soaking in this observation. Maybe he slipped up sometimes and looked at the counsellor with something akin to affection, but he was certain it wasn’t reciprocated.

“No, besides he’s very…” he waved a hand vaguely “…moody. I don’t know, he just randomly up and left. I thought we were having a good time.” He sounded a hint morose.

“Was it something you said?” Anathema scrunched her nose.

“We were just talking about how there are people who appreciate my work. Like yourself, and Crowley, Crowley does, and then I—“ he stared off in to the distance. “Well, I was running out of people so I said that my birds appreciate me. Oh golly, what if he’s afraid of birds?”

Azira felt his heart sinking. He had really wanted to introduce Ren to the counsellor.

“Did he know you keep birds?” Anathema asked patiently. Then it dawned on him.

“No, I don’t think I’ve mentioned it. Actually, I think I just referred to them as “my family”, force of habit really—“

Anathema’s eyebrows rose.

“So what you’re say is that you told this man, eligible, very good looking bachelor that your family appreciates you?” Her voice was somewhat shrill. “And by family you meant your god damn birds?”

Azira had the courage to look affronted.

“They are my family,” he insisted.

Anathema sighed.

“Oh, you idiot. He probably, rightly, assumed you were talking about an actual human family. An actual human partner and maybe a handful of actual annoying kids along with it.”

The blond frowned.

“You’re a man in your forties,” Anathema groaned “It’s the first, logical conclusion.”

She reached over and snatched Azira’s glass out of his hand.

“Hey—“

The woman drained it.

“If you weren’t such an idiot I wouldn’t need alcohol to deal with this conversation.”

“Why does it bother him?” Azira defended “Who cares if I have a family, avian or otherwise? We’re colleagues. It’s not going to change the Arrangement.”

Anathema frowned.

“I don’t know what this arrangement is, but I have a vague idea of what kind of arrangement Crowley is looking for.” She did another eyebrow wiggle that made Azira blush. She got up from her chair and tottered to the door.

“He wants to love you, he want to kiss you, he wants to—“

Azira lunged over to clamp a hand over the woman’s mouth.

“Good god Anathema, it’s the middle of the day. In a high school. And you are drunk on two glasses of wine. Pull yourself together.”

The teacher giggled like a school girl but fixed him with a sobering stare, 

“You won’t have a shot if he thinks you’re married to your pigeons.”

Unfortunately a “sobering stare” did nothing to help the teacher sober up herself, and Azira watched — somewhat alarmed — as she skipped away down the corridor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all of your lovely feedback so far! I am honestly just winging this story, writing whatever comes to mind in the moment, so I have about as much idea as yourselves as to where it's going so no guarantees how many chapters or w/e, but it's stretching out longer than I'd expected.


	7. Hippies Know Sadness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: References to a depressive episode and vague ideation - handled with proper intervention, safety plan and all!

Azira passed by Crowley’s office. The small blind on the window was drawn. This usually meant he was with a student. He thought back to what Anathema had said half an hour prior, or maybe he was sulking. The blond felt bad for jumping to conclusions, but from what he’d seen of the counsellor, whilst he maybe be beyond capable at dealing with students, he had his own (not so carefully) concealed baggage. It made the teacher’s chest ache, to think that a man with such a haunted past had so little emotional support, that he’d stumbled through a degree to make other’s lives better without sparing a thought for his own.

Feeling bold, he stepped forward and knocked forcefully on the door.

There was shuffling and it opened just a crack. Crowley, sunglasses off and amber eyes gleaming, peered around the door.

“Azira! Sorry, it’s not a good time.” His face was grave, eyeing the teacher warily.

“Please, I need to talk to you.” He pleaded.

The redhead shook his head.

“With a student right now, come back later.”

“Oh! I’m sorry.” Azira backed away from the door. There was a mumbling somewhere behind the door and Crowley turned to speak to the student. Seconds later the door swung wide. Pepper was draped over one of the scruffy armchairs, staring at the ceiling.

“I don’t want to intrude.” The teacher turned to head back to his office.

“No, she wants you to come in.”

The mess of curly hair made a noise of agreement. Azira stepped in and saw that the young girl was crying, tears dripping on to the scuffed Lino as she hung her head over the arm rest.

He gingerly took a seat in the other chair, heart in his throat. The first thing that occurred to him was the unwavering debt he owed to the counsellor. In less than half an hour after expressing his concern, Crowley had successfully tracked down the missing student and had earned her trust enough to begin to tease out what was going on. The second was sadness, and unfortunately that stuck to him like an unwelcome parasite. Azira was an empath, despite his reclusive nature. He was all soft touches and warm hugs and it took all of his professionalism not to give the girl a hug to help whatever she was going through.

Crowley took a seat and cleared his throat awkwardly.

“D’you want to give Dr Fell a summary, or do you want me to?” His voice was gentle, lacking the usual bite from when he spoke to adults. Pepper made an indistinct noise.

“I’ll let him know.” Crowley shifted and locked eyes with Azira. In spite of everything, it made the other man slightly distracted. He’d rarely had a proper glimpse of the counsellor’s eyes, always stubbornly hidden behind glasses. Now he saw why Crowley chose to put up these walls, because the face before him was steeped in emotion: pain, apprehension, sadness, maybe a glimmer of determination. Crowley’s eyes let Azira read him like one of his books, and he loved it. Shaking himself slightly, he tried to focus on the counsellor’s words.

“Pepper’s been struggling to feel motivated the last couple of months. A bit, worn out. She’s not having very helpful thoughts either.” Crowley seemed to be editing the story, it occurred to the teacher, this was confirmed when Pepper made another noise.

“It’s fine. You can tell him everything.” She sobbed and buried her head in the arm of the chair.

Crowley sighed and came around to lean against his desk, bridging the distance between them.

“Pepper was telling me that she doesn’t see herself living past the age of 18.” The counsellor bit his lip, eyes boring in to Azira’s skull. The teacher could practically hear the him trying to will himself not to cry, but an errant tear slipped out anyway and Azira found himself pulling the lanky man in to a tight hug. Professional boundaries be damned.

Crowley’s shoulders shook under the warm grip, and the blond found it difficult to pull himself away. As distressing as it was, this was about Pepper, who was now curled up like a cat on the armchair, staring blankly at a wall.

“What’s the point?” She whispered “What’s the point in going to class and trying and putting in so much effort when nothing matters?”

Azira sunk to his knees so that he was eye-to-eye with the girl.

“We need to know that you’re safe,” He ran a hand through her dark, messy hair. “Not just because it’s our job, but because we care.”

He cared, he cared so much that his heart was threatening to shatter in to a million pieces. Crowley, who was hovering beside them, wiping back tears cared so much and he’d only just met the girl today. It really wasn’t the time for it, but Azira found himself looking at a mirror of himself in the counsellor.

“D’you want to sit on the ground?” Crowley offered. This made the teacher frown, but Pepper seemed to cheer up a bit, sliding herself down on to the cold floor.

“It’s grounding,” the redhead explained as he folded himself up into something that looked like a complex yoga pose.

Azira shrugged and settled himself down next to the other two.

And Crowley was right. As soon as the coolness seeped through his clothes, pricking at his skin, Azira found himself taking a deep breath.

“If you’re struggling to stay in the moment, we do this.” Crowley splayed his hands on the floor and pressed down. Pepper copied him and successfully lifted herself a few inches off the ground.

“Wow, you’re strong.” Crowley commented, this made Pepper giggle.

“No, you’ve just got noodle arms.”

Crowley scoffed and wriggled his arms around bonelessly.

“So I’ve been told.”

Azira watched the two interact, talking about nothing in particular until Pepper’s mouth had permanently shifted from downturned edges to an ear-to-ear smile. It was only then that Crowley returned to the reason she was seeing him in the first place, and now Pepper was ready to talk. It was quite ingenious.

“Now, I’m going to have a chat with your parents, if you’ll allow it?”

Azira knew, theoretically, in cases like this it was their duty of care to notify the parents but somehow, leaving the ball in Pepper’s court seemed like a good way to approach it.

Pepper nodded slowly.

“My mum’s a bit of a hippy about things,” she said mournfully.

“S’okay, hippies know sadness, don’t they?” Crowley said kindly “I’m sure they’re familiar with chronic sadness too.”

“It’s the medications she doesn’t like.”

“Kid, we’ll cross that bridge if we come to it. For now, I’m just suggesting you start checking in with me regularly, I’ll find a psychologist in town for you to see as well, and we’ll make a safety plan so that we always know that you’re safe.”

She nodded silently.

“Now, part of this plan means we need to know where you are at all time.”

Pepper looked pained.

“… But Dr Hastur…”

“I know you two don’t quite get along, but this is important.”

“Actually,” Azira sat up “There might be an alternative. I think you might like it Pepper.”

Half an hour later Pepper left, slightly brighter, with some assortment pamphlets and a copy of a safety plan that gave her permission to sit in on Dr Fell’s class if she didn’t feel up to attending her scheduled class that period.

“It’s gonna be a bitch to run past Gabriel,” Crowley sniffed as the door closed, leaving the two men alone.

“Then don’t,” Azira shrugged “Just wait until someone notices, if ever, god knows how many weeks she’s missed Dr Hastur’s class without him reporting it. Everyone around here is slack.”

“Except for you,” Crowley grinned “That was very thoughtful of you, to offer her a spot in all of your classes.”

“I need more students. Besides, I love having her in the class.”

Crowley nodded, face falling slightly. “I just wish there was more I could do. She’s a lovely kid.”

Azira leaned forward and placed a hand atop of the counsellor’s

“You’ve done everything in your power. Well, above and beyond. Pepper’s strong, she needs to work it out from here.”

Crowley’s hand had tensed at the contact, but now Azira patiently turned it over so that they were holding hands. He gave the counsellor’s hand a reassuring squeeze.

“It’ll be fine.”

Crowley drew back, as if burned by the gesture.

Without breaking eye contact, he pulled his sunglasses out of his pocket and slide them over his eyes, breaking the connection.

“Don’t you have class?” He cleared his throat. The teacher looked confused for a second, before realising that, yes indeed time kept ticking on even in the midst of a crises.

“Oh, shit!” He checked his pocket watch and saw that he’d missed the entirety of 4th period and the first 10 minutes of the 5th. He’d never missed a class before and couldn’t begin to imagine the havoc his year sevens had wrecked in his absence. “I’ll be—“ he scrambled up “I’ll come back and check up with you after my next class.”

“You don’t have to check up on me, angel.” Crowley pointed out “I’m an adult. An adult whose job it is to check up on other people.”

Azira frowned.

“But, then, who’s checking up on you?”

He closed the door behind him, leaving Crowley feeling inexplicably breathless from the interaction.


	8. Raise a Little Hell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another unplanned chapter magically appears out of nowhere! I'm trying to start tying up the story but I keep making more ends to tie up haha

“Are you sulking?”

Crowley ripped out an earbud and looked around wildly.

“Excuse me?”

Anathema slipped in to the seat opposite him.

“You heard me,” she said cooly, taking an exaggerated sip of her tea.

“I’m not, I’m—“ Crowley flapped a hand around. What exactly was he doing? He’d sequestered himself away at the do-not-interact table: sunglasses on, earbuds in and Queen blaring at a volume that should cause long term hearing damage. After a few minutes of whatever-this-was that he was doing, his head had become too heavy to continue supporting and he’d resigned to lay with his face smushed against the table. The whole combination was dramatic, and angsty, and something that Anathema had seen preformed by countless kids going through their emo phase.

“I’m meditating,” Crowley offered.

Anathema snorted.

“To _We Will Rock You_? Teach me your ways, Dali Llama.”

“What do you want?” Crowley hissed.

“To help you.”

At these words the man propped himself up on his elbows, mildly interested.

“You going to give me a list of your favourite students?”

Anathema frowned.

“No, I gave that to Azira, I assumed he’d pass it on to you.”

Crowley groaned.

“Really? Couldn’t you have just found me? Now I’m going to have to go and ask for it and it’s going to be a whole _thing_.”

Anathema pursed her lips and surveyed the counsellor.

“You’re a child,” she said in a clipped tone, waving at Newt who’d just entered the kitchenette.

“Am not,” he bit back.

“Newt, tell him he’s a child.”

“You’re a child, Crowley.” Newt said obediently as he dropped in to the seat beside Anathema. _Whipped_ Crowley mouthed in the man’s direction.

“What’s this about?” Newt ignored the redheads silent taunts as he set about trying to plug his laptop charger in to a nearby wall socket.

“Crowley is out here sulking because he has the hots for Dr Fell and can’t communicate like a fucking adult.”

There was a fizzle and a spluttering.

One of them came from the redhead. The other came from the powerpoint as it crackled and burst in to flames.

“Oh dear,” Newt jumped back. “Fire, fire!” He began to yell. The teacher’s table barely looked around, it was a weekly occurrence that never escalated because—

There was a fizzle as Anathema dumped her tea over the socket.

“Thanks dear,” Newt said weakly, fishing his soaked charger from the sopping mess.

“Dry that before you go sticking it into another wall,” Anathema snapped as she took her seat “Anyway, where were we? Oh, yes. Crowley you were being a prat with the emotional intelligence of a lobster and I am here to help you.” The diversion with the powerpoint had distracted Crowley enough that he didn’t bother to dispute the woman’s claims.

“Azira has not got a family.” She said firmly. The counsellor’s eyes widened somewhat.

“But he said…”

“You’re both idiots, you’re perfect for each other. He keeps pigeons.”

“Pigeons?” Crowley squinted, mentally trying and failing to follow the thread of the conversation.

“He calls them his family,” Anathema rolled her eyes. “He doesn’t have a partner. Believe me, I would know, he bails on every man I set him up with and I know he’s not out at bars on weekends.”

Crowley tried to keep his expression impassive.

“Why would I care?” He did not like the fact that he sounded like a teenager complaining about curfew times, but he couldn’t seem to control his tone of voice lately.

“Because you like him.” Anathema said matter-of-factly, bringing her cup to her lips and frowning.

“Newt, dear, could you please make me some more tea?” She batted her eyes and Crowley didn’t even get a chance to taunt the man as he shuffled over to the kitchenette, his mind occupied with spiralling out of control. Yes, he liked the English teacher. Though how Anathema had caught on he had no idea. Yes, he was moping (it sounded slightly less pathetic than sulking in his opinion) because he’d been imagining the fussy blond going home each night to an equally fussy partner where they’d sit around drinking wine and talking about Homer before they went a little past tipsy and started snogging on their ridiculous tartan couch… Even though Anathema had confirmed this wasn’t the case, Crowley still couldn’t control the sharp pang of jealousy at this elaborate fantasy that he was decidedly not a part of. But now his mind was jumping to more realistic scenarios: Azira sitting on a tartan couch, doubled over with laughter, surrounded by the greying pigeons you could find at any half decent public park as Crowley stood before him and bared his soul. In this case baring his soul was asking if the teacher wanted to catch up for a drink sometime, Crowley was very guarded these days, okay?

He was laughing because Crowley was scrawny and pathetic and on a one-way path to damnation with his shitty past and juvenile dress sense. Before him sat an angel, who revelled in the finer things in life, and cared, genuinely cared about everyone. That was where Crowley had stumbled, wasn’t it? He’d taken the man’s kindness and proceeded to fall head over heels with him. Never mind that Azira was incapable of treating anyone, even Gabriel who was out to ruin his career, with anything less than the upmost respect.

There it was: the last of Crowley’s confidence proceeded to shrivel up and die.

Anathema must have seen the shift in the man’s expression because she reached forward and placed a comforting hand on his. He sensed it for what it was — caring and platonic — and he resisted the urge to pull away like he had done in his office.

“Do you want to know what I think?” She said.

Crowley gave her a half-hearted smile.

“I think I know well enough by now that you’re going to give me your opinion whether I want it or not.”

“Good man, you’re learning fast.” she patted his hand “So, I may not be blessed with a degree in this human emotions brain mumbo jumbo.” Crowley opened his mouth to protest “But I am blessed with the gift of basic observation and common sense, so I’d like you to here me out.

You’re lonely. You have some stuff going on. Some stuff you have been relentlessly fighting to keep it out of view of the world, and you’ve done pretty well. But you’re miserable. You’re living in a world to help others but not yourself. You put your needs at stake to stop others ending up on the path that you went down. That’s why you because a counsellor, right?”

Crowley nodded slowly.

“Okay, that’s you psychoanalysed, let’s move on to your boyfriend shall we?”

Crowley made a little noise of protest.

“Zira has some stuff going on, or at least he had last time I checked. It’s not my place to tell you, but he’s had a pretty rough past.” Crowley’s eyebrows shot up at this comment. He’d never been able to spot any cracks in the professor’s facade, not that he’d been particularly looking for imperfections, he was content to bask in the whole picture regardless.

“He’s done pretty well. Extremely well, I must say. But he’s alone. I mean, you could say he has us,” Anathema nodded at Newt, who was busy mopping up the tea he’d spilt on the table. “But he never opens up, just spends all of his energy making sure we’re okay, and his students too. I had to get him very drunk for even a vague reference to what his life’s been like up until now.” Anathema grimaced.

“He became a teacher for the same roundabout reason you chose counselling, in a way, and he’s forfeited his life with it. He says he’s happy, but it doesn’t take a genius to see that that’s a far cry from the truth.”

“So?”

“So, what I’m saying is: first of all you both need to get your shit together, mentally/emotionally, I don’t know just work through stuff. Secondly, once you’ve got your shit together I think you both should get together, you’ve got a lot in common.”

Crowley frowned.

“I don’t think Azira would really go for a guy like me,” he admitted. Anathema looked at him expectantly, waiting for some kind of elaboration.

“I’m—,” Crowley floundered for a way to summarise all of his faults without taking the woman on an hour long trek through his self-loathing.

“I’m a fuck up,” he finished lamely. “He deserves better.”

Anathema made an angry noise.

“How about you let Azira decide for himself? I think you’ll be quite surprised.”

Crowley grumbled and sunk back on to the table as a subtle way to hide the blush that sprung up as he imagined asking the teacher out. Then he imagined the pang of rejection. Then the fallout of having to pass each other daily in the corridors. To have to fulfil the arrangement they’d made knowing that the other couldn’t care for him in that way.

“There’s more important things to worry about,” Crowley stalled. “I don’t think it’d be appropriate to try anything whilst we’ve still got the arrangement going.”

Anathema blinked, mouth twisting in to a sly smile and the counsellor could see where her mind was going.

“No, we’re not trying friends with benefits,” he admonished, swatting her shoulder. “We have a plan to raise a little hell around here.”

Anathema’s eyes glinted with excitement.

“Go on, I’m listening.”


	9. Introspection (is Canceled Until Further Notice)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> viva la revolution bitches! (jks we're still setting up for the revolution and pining because it's slow burn city)

Anathema had insisted they focus on the most senior students, the ones two months out from applying to universities. Crowley offhandedly suggested dragging them one-by-one in to his office and interrogating them until they broke down and admitted that they actually enjoyed the arts.

Anathema had buried her face in her hands and loudly speculated on how Crowley had ever gotten the go ahead to work with children.

“Oh, that’s right. They trust you because they recognise one of their own,” she teased. The counsellor had responded by sticking out his tongue and that was all of the confirmation she needed.

“What we need to do, is make our classes more fun.” Azira suggested “Get the kids interested, get attendance back up so they see what they’re missing out on.”

“The only way you’re going to get more students is by bodily force,” Crowley said dryly “No offence, it’s not your teaching, they’re just following their peers. The arts aren’t cool.”

He rolled his eyes. Back in his school days peer pressure was a much less nuanced thing, and he’d expected to be telling these kids not to get pressured in to drugs, or smoking, or sex. Nope, here at Eden High he was going to be telling them not to get pressured into choosing an Accounting degree.

They were crowded around the crowded desk in Azira’s crowded office. Newt was in attendance, despite being somewhat of an “enemy” in Crowley’s opinion (“He’s one of them, Anathema, the self-righteous STEM bastards!” They both looked over at the man, who was literally praying to any deity that would listen as he tried, for a third time, to run outlook. Crowley had sighed and raised his hands in surrender at the pitiful sight.)

“We can make it cool again,” Anathema’s eyes lit up dangerously. “Show them what they’re missing out on.”

“And how exactly would we do that?”

“A festival. A festival showcasing the arts.”

Azira shook his head hurriedly.

“Gabriel would never allow that.”

“We’re not going to ask Gabriel,” Anathema snapped “It’ll be a secret festival.” Crowley groaned, they’d only just started brainstorming and already seemed like they were scraping at the bottom of the barrel.

“That could work,” Newt said slowly. Crowley groaned a bit louder.

“Just because you have the hots for her doesn’t mean you need to agree with every ridiculous idea she comes up with,” He’d expected Newt to dissolve into a wreck of spluttering and vehement denial at this accusation. Instead, the man adjusted his glasses and closed his laptop firmly.

“I’m surprised I’m the one saying this, this is your area of expertise.” He glowered at Crowley. “Isn’t the foundation of teenage thought _“Tell me what to do and I’ll do the opposite”_?” Crowley folded his arms defensively but nodded.

“Well, we make it very clear that the staff don’t want the students to enjoy the arts. We capitalise on the way Gabriel discourages attendance and turns students in the opposite direction, make it seem tempting. A way to flip the proverbial bird at the school. Classic teenage rebellion.”

Azira made a small noise of surprise, drowned out by the clatter of Anathema launching herself across the room at the IT teacher.

“You’re so-” She dragged the man in for a kiss, knocking his glasses off in the process,

“-damn intelligent.” She spat out breathlessly, before planting another forceful kiss to the man’s forehead.

Crowley cleared his throat slightly and the pair broke apart.

“I’d say get a room,” he started weakly “But we do have a situation going on at the moment.”

Both teachers stared at him blankly.

“Something, something, reverse-psychology.”

Blank and slightly flushed.

“The plan!”

That brought them back to earth.

“Oh, oh yes.” Newt scooped up his glasses and they took their seats again. “Carry on.”

* * *

“Adam!” Azira pushed his way through the crowded corridor. “Can I have a quick word with you?”

The boy closed his locker with a grim expression on his face.

“S’it about Pepper?” He asked fretfully. “Is she okay? Did Mr Crowley talk to her? Will she start coming to class again?”

“No my dear, it’s not about Pepper, but if you ever need someone to talk about it with, my door AND Mr Crowley’s door are always open. Except when they’re closed. That’s when it’s a metaphor and you should knock.”

Adam nodded, slightly less worried.

“Actually, it was about a little project I’m organising.” Azira pulled out a stack of sealed ivory envelopes. Not the horrific bleached-white stationery that the staff were burdened with, no, these were from his special collection, ornate and eye-catching and—

“Is it dragon hunting?” Adam joked, as he saw the red wax seals on the letters. Maybe the teacher had gotten a little carried away, but it had been such a long time since he’d ever allowed himself to think outside the box (the box that was his curriculum rubric and was heavily guarded on all sides by the likes of Gabriel and administration). Azira just quirked an eyebrow and gave the student his most mystifying look (which came across as confused at best).

“I’ll tell you more if you agree to help. Though it might cause a little bit of mayhem around here.” Adam’s eyes lit up at the hint of trouble, delivered by the least likely proponent of such antagonistic ideas.

“I’m listening,”

* * *

“How’d you get the keys to the gym?” Azira wondered aloud as the redhead wrestled with the padlocks.

“M’not too proud of that one,” There was a irritating screech as the door swung open. “Maybe have crossed some boundaries. Not professional boundaries, personal boundaries.”

The teacher’s face rearranged itself in to an expression of surprise,

“Do tell,”

“Nah, it’s kinda embarrassing.” Crowley flicked the lights, which hummed for a few seconds before flickering to life. Aziraphale made an impatient noise. Fine. “You know Mary in admin?”

“Gabriel’s assistant?”

“Yup, she had a pretty sizeable hand in hiring me.” Crowley frowned “Or a stake, a stake in me getting hired. Anyway, she gave me her mobile number on my first day.”

Azira’s surprise had now drawn his eyebrows in to his hairline.

“So I had to call in a favour, as it were. I’m not proud of it.” He repeated, shoving his hands in his pockets and turning away from the teacher.

“You seduced her?” The exclamation was equal parts scandalised and another emotion Crowley couldn’t quite pick. Besides, he didn’t have time to dissect the other’s words as he dissolved in to a coughing fit himself.

“Wot?” He managed to wheeze out, after half a minute trying to regain control of his respiratory system “Did I do what? Jesus, angel, no! I did not _seduce her,_” He spat out the last part, “Who on earth do you take me for?” It was a genuine question, and Crowley couldn’t help but notice the way Azira eyes travelled slowly up the man’s body, lingering on his lips a second too long.

“You’re just,” Azira made a wild gesture, refusing to make eye contact with the counsellor “Don’t make me say it. You’re very good looking, I wouldn’t be surprised if she was…” the words died on his lips.

“Right, we need to find these tables.” He clapped his hands together and bustled off, barely unable to disguise the blush that was creeping up from his collar.

They shuffled about in silence for a few minutes, dusting off folding tables they’d use for their secret festival. Crowley kept opening his mouth to speak then deciding better of it. He didn’t trust his mouth not to blurt out what his brain was thinking, but also he hadn’t told Azira what he’d actually done to get the keys to the gym.

“I gave Mary’s number to Shadwell the janitor in exchange for the keys.”

Azira looked up in surprise.

“That’s not a _terrible_ thing to do, dear. I mean, it’d be easy enough to find if Shadwell did a bit of digging himself. I do believe she’s got it on her Facebook profile.”

“But he’s creepy,” Crowley grimaced

Azira hummed.

“S’also a bit creepy that she hired you for your looks,” He pointed out, “Maybe they’ll be creepy together.”

Crowley chuckled.

“Fair point.”

They resumed setting up in silence, the air slightly more relaxed between them. This was probably what lead Crowley to relax the vice-like grip on his thoughts and suddenly—

“She’s not really my type anyway,” He offered awkwardly.

“Oh?” Azira didn’t look up from the tables he was dragging across the floor, “So what is your type?” It was monotone, unaffected and entirely not what Crowley had expected.

“Well,” he paused. What was his type? He thought back to the casual flings he’d had in his youth. Lucien, with his spikes black hair, all rough around the edges, rough enough that he cut Crowley on his way out. Then there were the women and men he’d met through bartending, he couldn’t elaborate further than that because he’d be hard pressed to remember a single name, maybe there’d be a flicker of recognition if they passed each other in the grocery store. Crowley’s type had always been “whoever wanted him” and he’d seen it to be a very select few who would tolerate his presence long enough to sleep with him. It wasn’t like he went out of his way for these encounters. He’d been perfectly happy to hang around behind the bar, ignoring every pretty face that walked past. He never chased anyone. On the rare occasion that someone approached him, he was to overcome with relief at being wanted, at being seen, that he’d happily sacrifice his own indifference to the validation a quick fling could have.

It was one of those aspects of himself he refused to subject to the therapist’s microscope, because he knew the conclusions would be damning.

He realised he’d paused for way too long. Azira had now stopped moving furniture and was standing there with his hands on his hips, waiting for an answer.

“Ah, well, I guess my type is the opposite of anyone I’ve ever had, since that never worked out,” He shrugged “I always dated—” (that was a bit of an exaggeration for what he did) “— partygoers, I mean, I’d meet them on the job at the bar. It attracts a certain type. I’ve been through enough relationships to maybe conclude that it’s not the type for me.”

Azira had taken a few steps closer to the redhead, so that they were only separated by a small card table. He chewed his lip nervously and Crowley was too focused on how adorable his nervous tics were to realise the direction this conversation was likely heading.

“So what you mean is you want someone who’s a bit more… laid-back?”

“Quiet,” Crowley nodded “I never ever want to hear trap music again. I want to drink quality wine rather than cheap shots just to get a buzz. I want someone who’ll hold me and look me in the eye and swear that they’re hanging around because they want to, not because it’s convenient.” He felt the heat rising in his face. He should have stopped talking at least a few sentences ago. Crowley glanced nervously over at the blond, who was staring at him with a piercing gaze and — _oh_ — they stood there for what felt like an eternity, eyes locked, micro expressions speaking louder than words could ever manage.

“I was wondering,” Azira began, pausing as if waiting for some kind of divine intervention to strike him dead. “I was wondering if—“

“Look what I got bitches!!!” The door burst open and Anathema came loping in, clutching a giant bundle of clothes. “Shakespeare in the gym is going to be lit.”

Azira stepped forward to relieve her of the pile, casting a sideways glance at Crowley that made the man’s breath hitch, and then made him want to run for the hills and never hear what the teacher had intended to say.

He wasn’t quite sure if he could take it.


	10. Brian Likes Planes

Azira did a double take when he walked in to his classroom the next day to find fifteen curious sets of eyes peering back at him.

“Ah!” He set down his briefcase with a flourish. “I see Adam has got the word around.”

Most of the students were clutching envelopes and sitting on the edge of their seat, as if prepared to leave at the drop of a hat.

He had one shot.

Adam gave him an encouraging nod from where he sat in the front row. To the teacher’s surprise, the chair beside him was occupied by Pepper, who gave him a tentative wave and a halfhearted smile. His heart soared. There was no one better for stirring up chaos than her, and it seemed that despite everything that was going on for her, she wasn’t about to miss the chance to turn some heads. Hopefully, the scheme gave her the momentum to keep pushing forward.

“So, George Orwell’s 1984, has anyone read it?”

There was a silence. Pepper’s hand shot up.

“It’s a story of an oppressive society that controls the thoughts of their citizens,” She recited.

“Interesting concept, isn’t it?” Azira speculated. “Orwell’s novel has been found to be quite didactic when it comes to analysing governing bodies and how leaders exert control on their subordinates. You can probably see the themes of his work reflected in the current state of the world, despite being written 70 years ago. For example, the social media that you all so love.”

The class, who were all to familiar with Pepper’s passionate rants on the subject, nodded tentatively in agreement.

Right on cue, Adam’s hand shot up.

“Yes, Adam?”

“How is this relevant to the festival?” He waved the pamphlet which bore in huge letters “Celebration of the Arts”, listing a time (tomorrow evening), and a venue (the gym) and promising bottomless crisps for everyone (Crowley’s shout).

“It’s not,” Azira said mildly “I’m allowed to teach my curricula, aren’t I dear boy?”

Adam slumped in his seat and the teacher continued.

The class grew restless, understandably so, because they’d turned up to get the password. The password for the festival that was a condition of entry and was purported to be unique to each individual in attendance. They had no choice but to turn up to class.

As Azira finished up summarising a book they’d never read, with nobody but Pepper taking notes, a boy in the back row threw a scrunched up flyer so that it bounced off of the teacher’s head.

“Excuse me,” he turned around indignantly.

“Ya,” the boy called out, waving a hand. “We’re just here for the password not for some dystopian shite.”

Azira frowned, he’d hoped to engage at least a few of the students with his lecture.

“Right, fine. Everyone has a unique password, a condition of entry. You must either dress up as your favourite historical figure—“

There was a groan.

“—Or bring along a copy of your favourite book. We’re going to start up a little loan library and we need everyone’s input.” There were a few nods from the class. Azira breathed a sigh of relief. Crowley had pointed out to Anathema that trying to get fifteen year olds to dress up as Attila the Hun was going to go down like a lead balloon. To which she frowned in judgement at his nominated “historical figure”. (“Your knowledge of history is informed by Night at the Museum, isn’t it?”)

“Perfect, well I hope to see you all there.” He hurriedly scooped up his stuff and left the room before the students could realise class was dismissed. Adam pounced, slamming the door behind the teacher and turning to his classmates with a determined eye.

“You know what? I think he has a point, but maybe not the point he was trying to make,” The class was enraptured, Adam tended to have that affect on his peers. He quickly entertained the idea of standing on Dr Fell’s desk to deliver his rousing call to arms, but thought better of it when he caught Pepper’s eye.

“I think that this school is like Orwell’s society!” He announced. There weren’t the gasps of realisation he’d been expecting from his classmates, so he ploughed on, “Hear me out. How many of you have been told what to do?”

The boy at the back rolled his eyes, “Mate, that’s the point of school. They make us do the thinking. Do what they tell us to do. It’s how you don’t get expelled.”

Adam shook his head.

“No, we’ve all been brainwashed. Sure, every school has rules. There’s stuff we’re supposed to do because we’re, well, students and the government says we have to. But Eden, Eden likes to tell us what to think.”

Muttering broke out.

“How many of you are taking physics?” The whole class raised their hands.

“How many of you are planning on studying psychics at university?” One third of the hands remained in the air.

“How many of you enjoy physics?” All but one hand lowered.

“I like planes,” Brian said defensively as his hand bobbed him the air.

“I’ve still made my point,” Adam propped a foot up on Dr Fell’s chair. Pepper frowned. He removed it. “They are trying to control our futures. To tell us what to think. What to believe. All for their agenda.”

Pepper rose from her seat.

“The more students going on to do science and business degrees, the more the school board pays the higher ups, like Dr Archangel.”

There was a boo from the crowd. Nobody was particularly fond of their principal and now, finding out that they’d suffered through subjects they despised for the sake of the man’s pay check, they were bordering on rabid.

“So you know what we do?” Adam’s voice rose, punching a hand in the air.

“Set fire to Dr Archangel’s car!” The boy up the back exclaimed. There was a cheer.

‘No, no. We start doing everything they’ve told us not to do. Like going to English classes. Looking in to what we want to do with our futures. Fuck what they want, it’s our lives that are at stake!”

“I don’t want to be an accountant,” Wensleydale burst out, looking absolutely terrified.

“Atta boy!” Pepper clapped him on the back, nearly knocking the small boy to the ground.

“And the first way we raise hell,” Adam declared, and he swore his classmates leaned forward in anticipation of his next words. “Is to make sure this festival is lit!”

The class cheered and began to gather up their stuff, excitedly discussing the next day.

“Maybe you should clarify,” Pepper muttered to him, as their peers flocked past “We’re keeping this anarchy legal!” She called out over the babbling crowd. “No alcohol. No weed. No one’s getting arrested.”

“Woo! Arrested!” Someone shouted and then the herd of students was gone.

“I’m not one to pray,” Pepper muttered. “But She better make sure this goes smoothly, else I’m afraid some people will be losing their jobs.” She shrugged on her bag and made for the door.

“Who’s She?” Adam called, somewhat confused.

“GOD IS A WOMAN,” Pepper shouted in reply. It filled the classroom and the corridor beyond and maybe Gabriel in his office felt something in the world shift. Or maybe the landslide would begin the follow evening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have written 20k words in 5 days and not a single one was for my thesis RIP academia  
Confession time: haven't read 1984 in a while so I didn't go in to any detail


	11. Americanisms

It was the day of the secret festival. Crowley had put Newt on crisp duty. (“Chip duty,” Anathema corrected in her American twang. Newt was inclined to agreed because, well, it was Anathema).

So Newt was on chip duty, a crisp five pound note (“That’s the proper use of the word.” Anathema would have said, reading this retelling.) clutched in his hand. He snuck down the road to the local Tesco whilst the rest of them finished setting up and panicked in the snack aisle when he realised nobody had told him what flavour to get (“Get a fuckton of crisps,” Crowley had said. Azira had glared at the counsellor for his language abuse, that was not a valid measurement.)

He got a bag of everything, just in case, and struggled back to the school with bulging grocery bags, only to walk straight in to Dr Archangel as he entered the gate.

There was an oof! and small explosion as some of the bags burst upon impact. Let it be said that Newt was still prone to causing explosions even in the absence of electronics.

“Newton!” Gabriel dusted himself off unnecessarily and frowned at the bags in the other man’s hand. “Got a bit of a party going on, have we?”

For the sixth time that day, Newt panicked.

“I just really like chips,” He said weakly, drawing the bags closer like the principal might rob him of his home brand snacks.

Gabriel smirked, “You do really need to stop hanging out with that American, she’s a bad influence.”

Newt gulped, they’d been found out. Gabriel knew about the festival and was going to shut it down before it had even started. They were all going to lose their jobs.

Let’s go for ignorance.

“Haha, what do you mean?” Newt was aware his voice was shaking.

“These,” Gabriel plucked at a bag of salt and vinegar, “Are crisps, don’t let that witch tell you otherwise.”

Newt relaxed slightly.

“Well, best be off. Crisps to eat,” He said hurriedly and began to walk away.

The principal called after him, “Be careful of the trans-fats, Mr Pulsifer.”

* * *

If the other teachers noticed that the students were abuzz that afternoon, they would likely attribute it to it being a Friday. Although Dr Hastur mistakenly thought it was excitement as the physics teacher introduced his pet frog to the class. Unfortunately, the whispers had begun to reach the outskirts of the student body, where they threatened to leak in to the ears of the faculty. But this wouldn’t have eventuated had Shadwell, the janitor who’d been bought in to the scheme, not tried to make a move on Mary that afternoon.

* * *

Mary wasn’t very attentive at her job. She played a lot of candy crush, updated her Facebook status twice a day and was ready to take personal calls in an instant. When an unknown number flashed on to the screen, she all but jumped for joy at the opportunity to take a break from scheduling for the principal.

“Hello, Mary Loquacious speaking!”

“Gud afternoon lassie, I was wondering if y’ud like to grab a drink wit me after’ta school dae?” Shadwell was nothing if not confident, and felt no need to introduce himself.

“I’m sorry, who is this?”

“Shadwell, I empty ye bins,” He said confidently.

“How did you get my number?” For once, Mary was reconsidering a preposition to be social.

“That fiery-haired twink gave it to me in exchange ‘fo access to the gymnasium.”

Mary’s heart sunk, so her number was a bargaining tool. If Crowley was giving it out to the likes of the janitor (who was, admittedly, Mary’s type — she had a broad range), that meant the counsellor himself wasn’t interested. A touch betrayed, she decided to press further.

“What’s he doing in the gym?” She asked.

“S’not fo me ta say,” The janitor grumbled.

“I’ll join you for that drink if you tell me,” She offered.

The man had no reservations in telling her everything the party were planning and was affronted to find the secretary hung up before arranging a time to go out for a drink.

* * *

Gabriel waltzed in to the office as if he owned the place and wasn’t on a limited tenure based on the student’s academic outcomes. He threw some folders down in front of Mary and proceeded to his office before pausing for a second.

“Say, Mary, do we have any crisps?”

His assistant frowned.

“Why would we have—“

“Never mind, just find me some. I’m peckish,” The man waved a hand airily. This would have registered as the oddest exchange the pair had ever had if Mary had not been singularly focussed on telling the principal her gossip.

“Gabriel, I have a secret.” She said eagerly.

The man regarded her with disdain.

“Aren’t your secrets for your status updates?”

“No, this is work-related. It’s about that Crowley fellow.”

The principal’s eyebrows shot up.

“Well, by all means, come in to my office.”

He closed the door behind them hoping that Mary’s secret wasn’t some inane confession that she had the hots for the counsellor. The whole of England (except Shadwell) knew.

* * *

“Don’t touch,” Anathema slapped Newt’s hand away as she coiled the remaining fairy lights around the basketball post. They had managed to turn the gym in to a veritable masterpiece in a few short hours. This was largely due to Crowley’s contributions, having brought every plant from his office, making Eden High School’s gym closely resemble what Eden itself might have looked like.

“Reading corner. Jousting with pool noodles. Costume competition. Dress ups. Famous literary foods,” Azira ran through the list anxiously, pointing at each station in turn.

(Jousting with pool noodles was a vague reference to medieval times that Anathema did not teach on her curricula, but she insisted the kids needed an excuse to hit each other.)

He checked his pocket watch.

“Oh dear, we have less than half an hour until school finishes,” He refrained from saying _“until the students start arriving”_ because, despite the seeming enthusiasm in his classes, the teacher wasn’t entirely certain they’d get a single attendee.

This was remedied a few minutes later as Adam and his friend burst through the door.

“Wicked!” He crowed, diving straight for a pool noodle and jabbed it at Brian.

“Shouldn’t you lot be in class?” Azira said sternly.

Pepper shrugged.

“We had physics with Dr Hastur and last lesson he said something very xenophobic so I’m boycotting his lessons on principle.”

“We’re moral support,” Brian piped up.

“Good job!” Crowley dished out high fives to the four students.

“Is that butter beer?” Wensleydale’s eyes went wide as he spied the food table.

Azira perked up, “It is indeed, dear.”

“Does it have actual beer in it?” Brian asked eagerly.

“Butterbeer is traditionally non-alcoholi,” The teacher frowned, not pointing out that that was the least of the reason why he wasn’t supplying alcohol to minors.

“This is gonna be sick!” Pepper opened her backpack and pulled out five books for the book exchange.

Azira caught Crowley’s eyes and gave him a warm smile and the counsellor found his brain short circuiting as if Newt had gotten in there and tampered with the connections (poor guy would always get the blame)

* * *

Within ten minutes of class ending, the gym was already overrun with students. Anathema manned the dress ups and jousting. Newt tried not to touch anything. Azira hung around at the book exchange and made lively conversation with interested students. Crowley was canvassing for students on the teacher’s lists of enthusiastic students, giving them a subtle nudge towards their dreams.

* * *

All of a sudden an alarm started blaring (“It wasn’t me,” Newt said quickly.) and the excited students paused in their activities.

“Shit,” Crowley muttered. That was the fire alarm. He saw Azira looking around wildly for smoke that wasn’t there. It was a traditional dreary day with rain lashing the gym windows. There weren’t any flames or plumes of smoke and the counsellor wanted to call it a false alarm, but they were obliged to evacuate the students to safety regardless.

“Pack up, we’ve got to go!” He called and the students dropped their pool noodles and books, grumbling.

They all shuffled out in to the light rain, towards the administration car park where they were required to meet.

“Crowley, Crowley!” Azira was pushing through the crowd, worry lines set in to his face. “They’re going to find out.”

Shit. The redhead groaned. He’d been so focused on how inconvenient the alarm was that he hadn’t thought about how they were leading a majority of the school (who should have gone home an hour ago) towards Dr Archangel and the admin staff. It was too late. The first of the students had rounded the corner to the front of the school, the alarm still blared, the four rabble-raising staff members hung back in fear of what was around that corner.

“We should just run away. They don’t know it was us,” Crowley muttered, “We’ll jump the fence and hope that the kids don’t say what was going on in the gym.” That plan was as airtight as a sieve and the counsellor knew it.

“No,” Azira said firmly. “They’ve got to know the truth.”

“Well, it doesn’t make sense that we all take the blame. I’ll tell them it was all me. All of us don’t need to be out of a job,” Crowley insisted and took a deep breath before stalking around the corner, directly in to the line of sight of Dr Archangel, who was standing on a bench surveying the mass of students with distaste.

But as Crowley approached the principal, he felt a warm arm press against his. Azira was following him, almost glued to his side.

“The fuck are you doing?” The counsellor hissed. “I can get you out of this.”

“Dear, I can’t let you take the blame for something that I believed in too. For something that there shouldn’t be any blame to take” The blond murmured, hand gently brushing Crowley’s as they walked and it took all of the man’s effort not to stop dead in his tracks at the contact.

“Let me do the talking,” The teacher added.

Crowley just made a strangled noise in reply.

Gabriel was flanked by Mary and Sandalphon, his assistant principal, the latter who only made an appearance for particularly damning cases of student misconduct. The man seemed to take a sort of sick pleasure in suffering. Crowley couldn’t help but notice the way the squat administrator’s eyes lingered on the closeness of the pair’s touch.

“What’s this?” Gabriel said mildly as the duo drew level. “Why are there 100 students on my property after hours?”

“Where’s the fire?” Crowley snarked and he felt the English teacher grab his hand in warning. He didn’t let go.

“Certain occasions call for unconventional interventions,” Sandalphon said through gritted teeth.

“So I take it you know what’s going on then?” Azira said plainly. “So we don’t need to explain ourselves, or justify our actions.”

Gabriel scoffed.

“By golly, you needn’t explain yourselves, I have all the information I need from Mary here,” Mary ducked her head, “About your little soiree. Peddling the arts like some kind of pathetic… arts teachers.” He struggled with the last bit.

“Yes, well, you’ve made it abundantly clear what you think of us Gabriel,” Azira said cooly, “But I can’t help but think that maybe, if given the chance, some of the students may disagree with this rather callous assessment of our disciplines. We were simply evening the playing field, as it were.”

“Evening the playing field?” Gabriel hissed.

“You mean by throwing an unauthorised, secretive event on school property to lure kids in to choosing a dead end career? My god Azira, I must admit I did still have a shred of respect for you, despite all of your failings. I never pegged you as a trouble maker.”

Azira began to shake and Crowley squeezed his had gently.

“I’m done being docile!” The blond stammered. “I’m done taking orders and sacrificing myself for your stupid greater good. The English department deserves to be a department. We deserve the same kind of respect as the other teachers but instead I’ve been bullied since the day I started here and yet, I’ve been loyal to you Gabriel. I think I’m owed something.”

Gabriel glared.

“I think what you’re owed is a nice invitation to resign,” He said lightly “Of course, it wouldn’t do to fire you. Would look pretty terrible for the school. But I think you’ve outstayed your welcome Dr Fell.”

“Hey!” Pepper had elbowed her way to the front of the crowd. “Dr Fell is the best teacher this school has-” (“No offence,” she muttered to Anathema, who just nodded in agreement) “-He’s the only one that noticed that I was having a difficult time. I missed just one of his classes and he was worried, when no other teacher noticed I was gone.”

Sandalphon stepped forward and cleared his throat.

“Young girl,” he simpered “The mark of a good teacher isn’t if they notice you’re having a bad day.”

Pepper made a rude hand gesture before Adam could drag her back from the confrontation.

“If Dr Fell is leaving Eden, I am too,” He said.

“Me too,” called Anathema and, after a beat, “I’ll go wherever Anathema goes.”

“I know it doesn’t mean much, I know you never wanted me here anyway but I’ll be heading off too,” Crowley shrugged.

The blond whipped around, eyes widening.

“Of course I would angel,” He mumbled and he thought he was going to melt under his friend’s warm stare.

There was a smattering of “Me too”’s from the crowd of students, including the rest of Adam’s friends, but Gabriel didn’t seem too put out.

“Well, we need to do a spring clean every now and then.” He shrugged, “If you don’t like how things are run at Eden, you can leave.”

He turned on heel and walked back to his office, leaving a hoard of muttering students and a few flabbergasted staff members behind.

Crowley dared to glance at the English teacher, who was still gripping his hand like a lifeline. His gentle mouth had turned downwards, tears clouding blue eyes. Instinctively, Crowley pulled him in for a hug.

“Hey, hey. Wherever you go I go,” He said softly. “…If you can tolerate me,” thrown in as an afterthought.

Azira gave a wet laugh and mumbled something in to Crowley’s shoulder. The counsellor wasn’t quite sure what was said.

Well, he was, but his brain refused to process it.

It couldn’t be true.


	12. I'm In The Wreckage Too

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> whump here's the feelings before they maybe get their shit together

Later Crowley might joke about getting kicked out of Eden twice — maybe over drinks with his fallen colleagues, if they would speak to him — but now it was still a fresh wound. He packed up a pitiful box with the assorted junk his office had accumulated in the few short weeks of his tenure in the hour following their confrontation with Dr Archangel, with a familiar ache in his chest.

Failure.

He fiercely told it to _fuck-right-off_, because he hadn’t failed, per say.

Rather, he’d done the right thing at the expense of his career.

He’d keep repeating that, over and over, until his wretched brain became permeable to such messages.

They left the cark park with little fanfare. Students scurried out the school gate as the alarm was switched off, unwilling to get caught up in the conflict. The festival in the gym lay abandoned and forgotten, both by the attendees and the organisers. Shadwell would have a nasty surprise the following morning as he went to buff the gym floors.

What was left was a standoff of sorts: the representatives of administration and the small band of anarchists (the Them included, so maybe it was a reasonably sized band).

Azira was watching Gabriel with a strange expression on his face: half disappointment and half hope. He was waiting for Gabriel to relent, to concede that maybe the English teacher had a point and, _oh they could do better, _because it was the greater good after all.

Surely it was?

“Let’s go,” Crowley said firmly, tugged on Azira’s hand. “We’ll get out of your hair, Gabriel.” He spat out.

The blond refused to move, still staring up at the principal expectantly.

Gabriel seemed to hesitate for a second,

“Be out before Shadwell locks the buildings at 6pm. Mary will finalise your resignations when she gets in on Monday.”

The English teacher visibly wilted at the words and all Crowley could do was drag him away from the smug face of Sandalphon and the indifferent Gabriel.

“Come on, angel, it’ll be fine,” He murmured, and the look the other gave him threatened to stamp on the remains of his heart. He felt Azira’s hand pull away as he shoved them in deep coat pockets. Bowing his head against the cold and not looking back, he sped up towards his office block, leaving the other three standing, stunned in the courtyard.

“Fuck, I’m sorry,” Crowley ran hands through his hand and tugged at it in frustration, “This wasn’t supposed to go like this.”

“No, it’s the right thing to do,” another spoke, and Crowley froze when he realised it was Newt, not Anathema, speaking.

The man adjusted his glasses and continued.

“I wouldn’t want to go here as a student, but I probably would have if given the chance. See, I don’t ask questions,” he frowned, “Or I don’t ask the right questions. Either way, I’ve been here for three years watching student morale crumble around me. I believed Gabriel for a bit: it’s not our job to make sure the students are happy, they’re here to learn. But then someone helped me realise that there was more to my pupils than their ability to safely eject a USB, and I’ve been unhappy ever since.”

Crowley frowned,

“Is it really that hard to properly eject a USB?”

“That’s not my point! But yes!” Newt gave a long-suffering sigh, “My point is, someone came in to my life who changed my way of thinking and I’d follow them everywhere,” He shot a glance at Anathema out of the corner of his eye.

“Hey, man, is this a proposal? I know I started a revolution and everything but I don’t seem like your type.” Crowley joked.

“Shut up, Crowley.” Anathema was looking at Newt with a ridiculously gooey expression that had never once graced the woman’s face before now.

“Oh, darling,” She reached out and grabbed Newt’s hand, pulling him closer to her, “I’d go anywhere you’d go too,”

She grasped his cheeks and pulled him down into a kiss.

Crowley coughed loudly and the pair broke apart.

“Oh piss off and find your book nerd,” she glared at him, no heat behind the stare.

“Right,” Crowley swallowed with apprehension and began to walk towards the office block.

* * *

Alone.

It was how Crowley had spent most of his adult life. But better alone than hurt, he always told himself. At his new Eden flat, his possessions had never left the moving boxes, as if he’d known not to get attached to the place. It took less than half an hour to bundle them into the back of the (same) moving van he’d hired a fortnight previously. The driver helped him load in silence, his grey moustache bristling occasionally with the temptation of asking: What on earth had gone wrong?

What had gone wrong? Maybe it was because Crowley put his heart on the line for the first time in decades, and then it was pinned under a guillotine to be sliced with the precision of a seventh year’s rat dissection. Maybe it was because returning to Eden had brought up old demons. A bitterness that couldn’t be shifted without a vicious retaliation on his part. A chance to put things right.

True to form, Crowley had fucked it up.

“Where’re we going?” The driver asked as he started up the truck. As far away as possible, Crowley thought to himself. What he wouldn’t give to drive the truck off of the cliffs of Dover. He’d let the driver out for that one. Plant himself firmly in the driver’s seat and accelerate without abandon.

Anathema had taken to reminding him that he had a flair for the dramatic, so take this plan of action with a grain of salt, but Anathema wasn’t around anymore.

“Windonshire,” Crowley muttered. The man put the truck in to gear.

“Perfect, not too far then!”

Not far enough.

* * *

Crowley could movement beyond the frosted glass. For the first time since he’d been around, Aziraphale’s little mailboxes were completely cleared out. It would’ve been a nice sight under different circumstances, Crowley sighed, not bothering to knock before he entered a room littered with paper.

“Hey,” he said softly. Azira didn’t look up from the haphazard piles of files and documents he was throwing together. “Can we talk?”

Still no response, but as the counsellor tried to take a step closer, the blond’s hand flew up in warning.

“I liked my job.” He said shakily, not meeting the other’s eyes. “I liked my job and now I don’t have it.”

Crowley felt a pang of guilt. Misplaced, perhaps. Not entirely his to bear, perhaps. Azira had gone up against Gabriel, not Crowley.

But this was his mess to begin with, and he’d tempted Azira in to being a part of it.

“I’m sorry,” the redhead broke. “I’m sorry I started all of this. _Fuck_, why can’t I just keep my nose out of other people’s business? We’re all out of a job just because I wanted to tell my high school to stick it, a couple of decades too late.”

“You know Crowley,” the teacher said levelly, stacking up worn volumes on his crowded desk. “There’s a reason why there’s a status quo here.” _The fucking greater good, right?_ “I think, in all of the excitement, I forgot that I’m not one to rock the boat. I’m not you.”

“We weren’t rocking the boat, angel. Well, the boat has been long in need of rocking, someone had to do it.”

“And what did we do but throw ourselves overboard?” Azira looked up, and he wasn’t upset, he was angry. Crowley, who had never seen him express such an emotion, instinctively recoiled,

“What did we achieve?” He repeated, voice rising.

“I— ah,” Crowley was pinned by the man’s glare, but probably wouldn’t have had an answer anyway.

“I could help people here. Sure, in the grand scheme of things, administration has some sort of ineffable plan to get whatever it is they want: bonuses, arse pats from the school board, or whatever. But I made something. I made my students feel cared for, even if I had hundreds under my tutelage. Pepper! Who else was going to notice what was going on for that poor girl?”

Crowley shook his head. He knew the teacher was right and the reality was sinking in. In a few short weeks, he’d dislodged the few gems left in Eden’s rusting crown. Azira was enough of a good teacher alone to make up for what the school as a whole lacked. He imagined a row of faces, next year’s English class, waiting expectantly for their teacher. A girl, maybe it’s Pepper, but with long red hair and hazel eyes so that it cuts Crowley deeper, is waiting for guidance, for a kind face and a helping hand who will see her through the year. Maybe that girl doesn’t enjoy being at home so much as she does sitting in English class, taking every opportunity to stay after the bell, retiring to the library in an attempt to stall the inevitable.

Maybe that girl won’t be seen in the way Pepper was, maybe she can’t quite muddle through life the way Crowley did.

Crowley sagged, collapsing on to a chair littered with student essays.

“I’m sorry angel, I didn’t think.”

“Obviously,” the teacher snapped, slamming his briefcase on to the desk. It was a bit harsh, but Crowley deserved it, he’d sooner endure the flagellation from those around him than be left to stew in his own personal hell.

“I think you should go, Crowley,” The tone was cold and detached, sending a shiver of dread up Crowley’s spine.

“What— what about this?” He said weakly, getting to his feet. What about the warm hand on his back as he cried in to his pot plants? What about the soft touches as they strung fairy lights in the gym? What about the way he caught the teacher staring at him, only to have him turn away, blushing when caught?

Evidently Crowley’s heart had been misreading the directions, because he realised he was lost in three, simple words.

“What about what?” Azira looked at him, face unreadable.

Crowley felt the remaining air in his lungs coalesce, forming one sticky mess that refused to budge, even as his lungs contracted. He’d never been so blatantly wrong in his life and shame swooped in an instant. _Of course, you deluded sod_ his brain hissed triumphant _you’re unloveable, that’s what we’ve know all along, right?_

Ah, Crowley hadn’t heard his mantra for a while yet, but it took up residence in the forefront of his mind as he stumbled towards the door. Azira had gone back to his packing, ignoring the counsellor’s exit.

_You’re a fuck up._

It was calming, in a sense, to realise that things never change.

* * *

He was gone.

Anathema and Newt waited for Crowley to finish packing his stuff. They hadn’t spoken a word, but then Crowley asked after the English teacher.

“He’s gone already,” Anathema said, mouth set in a hard line.

“D’you— d’you have his number? I want to apologise again,” Crowley pleaded desperately.

“I think he needs some time,” was all the woman could say.

The three of them sombrely dragged themselves out of the school grounds.

* * *

Text Message

Tuesday 2:11pm

**Anathema: Both Newt and I have interviews in Shrivenham next week.**

There wasn’t any use looking for teaching jobs in Eden.

Crowley pulled up Seek and searched the area. No one was looking for a guidance counsellor in Shrivenham, nor its surrounds.

He so desperately wanted to cling to those he knew, and now that number had been reduced to two, the man was certain he’d follow Newt and Anathema around the country like a lost little puppy.

* * *

They catch up over drinks the next week, where Anathema announces that they’ll both be working in Shrivenham. Newt’s job is in tech support, rather than a teaching position, and Crowley’s not sure whether the world is better off or not for this.

“It’s almost an hour away,” Anathema said, “But you’re welcome to visit.”

_We’re leaving you behind in the wreckage_, was what Crowley heard, _but if you can pull yourself out we’d love to see you._

He’d been slightly impolite by cutting their meeting short.

He’d forgotten to ask about Azira, or maybe he’d been waiting for the History teacher to bring him up.

* * *

Either way, he found himself packing up the flat to take up a barista job in Windonshire — just a small detour in the big plan — he’d assured himself. Somehow the big plan seemed too much like the great plan and Azira’s absence was all the more noticeable.

* * *

He found himself moving into a flat above an ailing bookshop, right across the road from Dante’s Coffee, which was sleek and modern in all the worst ways. He took every shift they threw at him in the first week, eager to fill the emptiness of his new life.

He was wounded, and he knew it, and alone would be a numbness that would slowly eclipse the pain of Eden.


	13. If You're Heading to Hell, We Should Carpool

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the last chapter's angst, I had a terrible day so coped by playing football with their hearts a bit. I could spend chapters and chapters unravelling Crowley's issues but I've settled on this (sort of resolution) chapter and then an epilogue to round it off!  
Content Warning: references to homophobia and abuse

**Anathema - Text Message**

**Friday 7:34pm**

Azira asked about you

**Friday 8:45pm**

????

** _Missed call from Anathema_ **

**Saturday 10:02am**

**Anathema - Text Message**

**Saturday 10:03am**

Pick up you mopey bitch

* * *

“Welcome to Hell,” Crowley said, hardly looking up from the register. He wasn’t even taking the piss, that was what his manager had told him to say to patrons. Maybe because they thought it was edgy, or maybe just because Beelzebub was about as enthusiastic as he was to work there. Either way it fitted with the theme at Dante’s.

“It is quite dreary, isn’t it?” Came a familiar voice causing Crowley’s head to snap up so quickly a searing pain stabbed at his neck.

Azira looked the same. Of course he looked the same, it’d been less than a month since that fateful day, but Crowley found himself expecting the teacher to have changed. Crowley himself had changed, divorced from what had happened by shedding his former life like an unwanted skin. He’d traded his worn leather jacket for a linen blazer and neatly pressed shirts that complemented the minimalist interiors of his workplace. Then he’d stared in the mirror for what felt like eternity and it still wasn’t enough.

In a moment of desperation, he’d cut his long locks that he’d treasured since high school and now he looked in the mirror and saw enough of a different person to be able to stand living in this skin.

“You look different,” the blond smiled tentatively.

There was no appraisal of the man’s new style, rather, a hesitation with which one might try approach a wounded animal.

“What do you want?” Crowley snapped, and it wasn’t quite the customer service voice he’d worked hard to perfect.

“Ahhh—“

If Crowley were being completely honest with himself, he expected nothing less than an apology from his friend — if they could be called that. Leaving Eden, Crowley was treated to weeks of silence from the other. Anathema had finally relented and given the counsellor Azira’s number and, in a few moments of weakness, the redhead had left voicemails in a drunk stupor that he wouldn’t remember fully the next day.

Azira had never picked up or returned his calls.

Obviously.

And now here he was, standing in front of him, large as life and, (Crowley stamped on his traitorous heart) as beautiful as ever.

“A coffee, two creams, one sugar,” The man placed some coins on the counter (Crowley hated when customers did that) and murmured a 'thanks' before drifting off, leaving the barista to scrap the coins off the polished bench.

When he finally closed the till, he noticed Azira had started up a conversation with Beez, who was working behind the coffee machine. Before he could attend to his own panic at having the man appear out of nowhere, something caught his eye. Well, two things.

Beez was smiling.

Crowley felt a small swoop of jealous before he realised this was maybe the first time he’d seen his manager smile. He took a step closer to overhear their conversation. Of course, they were discussing morality in Lord of the Flies. His manager hadn’t struck him as the literary type, but they did seem to have a soft spot for the infernal winged beasts.

When Azira took his coffee graciously and retired to a table near the window, Crowley was cornered by Beez in the store room.

“You fucking idiot,” they hissed.

Crowley paused in rotating the milk.

“What are you talking about, I always rotate the milk on Tuesdays. I only forgot that one time, promise.” He was used to their tough love approach to running a business, and had hoped his mistake the week prior had been long forgotten.

“You fucking idiot,” they repeated, “That man is an angel,”

Crowley looked up in surprise.

“How do you know Azira?”

“Because he told me he was here to visit you, you bloody moron. How do you know him?”

He was here to visit Crowley. Of course he was, but he didn’t want to think about the implications of this. Did he want to talk? To remind Crowley how he’d singlehandedly ruined the man’s career?

“We worked together,” Crowley mumbled. Beez glared expectantly.

“…And?”

“And what? I fucked up okay.”

Beez groaned.

“Don’t you have a degree in some emotional mumbo jumbo?”

Crowley frowned.

“I used to be a guidance counsellor—“ _for all of five minutes_ “If that’s what you mean.”

“Well, for what it’s worth, you’re hopeless at reading people,” Beez hummed.

“Oh yeah?”

“Guy couldn’t take his damn eyes off of you the whole time we were talking.”

“He was the one who said there wasn’t anything between us,” Crowley said defensively, “Rightly so, as well, he’s far too good for me.”

There was a chime of the service bell out the front.

“Shouldn’t you be chasing after what’s good for you?” Beez pointed out and left the room.

That wasn’t what he’d meant.

But it was a compelling argument.

He returned to the register and realised that it was Azira who’d rung the bell. He was deep in conversation with Beez and Crowley found himself focussing on the dust that had settled on the register keys rather than chance a look at the teacher, lest Beez was right and he was looking over at the redhead.

“Of course, in fact he can go now, call it a paid break,” Beez was saying, and Crowley looked up in time to find himself being steered around the counter, his manager furiously undoing his apron as they manhandled him.

“Oi, Bee, buy me a drink first,” He joked weakly. They glared and pushed him towards their customer.

“You are going on a break, don’t come back until you’ve sorted yourself out.”

Crowley wanted to point out that if that were the case he’d probably be gone the better part of a decade, but Beez didn’t seem in the mood for jokes. Not that they ever were, really, the barista just liked to irritate them.

Azira looked at him hopefully, and those soft blue eyes did things to Crowley’s dried out heart.

“Can we talk?”

Crowley nodded, aware that his hands had started shaking. He followed the blond towards the exit, not realising until they stepped out that Windonshire was currently being doused in rain.

“Oh,” he hesitated, as they huddled under the cafe’s awning.

“It’s okay,” From his pocket Azira produced the same white umbrella that he’d sheltered Crowley with the day they’d met. They started to walk and Crowley was caught by how intimate it was, the two of them under one umbrella. He could hear Azira’s breathing beside him, as the other fought to arrange his words.

“I got a job,” He smiled weakly, “It’s only part time teaching, but it think I can work my way up.”

Crowley felt a fresh wave of guilt.

“I’m sorry,” the words all but disappeared as they left his mouth.

“Oh, no. It’s not your fault,” The other said kindly, resting a gentle hand on Crowley’s shoulder. The warmth was electrifying and everything the man had ever wanted, but Crowley’s first instinct was to shrug it off. Keep a distance. There were conditions to being alone and he didn’t need his boundaries compromised.

“Whereabouts?” The barista asked instead.

“Here,”

Crowley frowned.

“Windonshire?”

Azira nodded. Oh. That was, inconvenient at best for Crowley’s long term plans of isolation. But the man wouldn’t want to have anything to do with him anyway. He was just here to tell Crowley to stay away. Tell him that they were near each other and he couldn’t let the barista ruin his life again.

“I think I owe you an apology.”

Crowley shook himself.

“I’m sorry?”

“No, I’m sorry, dear,” Azira pressed. They meandered towards the local park as the rain began to ease up, “I shouldn’t have pushed you away the way that I did. I panicked. I’m afraid I’m quite new to all this.”

It was only then that Crowley remembered the worn bible that had sat in the teacher’s bookshelf. And the way Azira’s eyes had lingered as they sat together in Crowley’s office. The man kicked him, hadn’t Anathema said something about them having similar pasts?

“Are you— have you—?” He begun but the blond was shaking his head.

“I’ve never been in a relationship.”

Crowley couldn’t help the look of surprise that crossed his face. Azira was the type of person who drew people in to his orbit merely by virtue of being himself, surely he’d had been pursued by someone in the last couple of decades?

As if reading his mind, the other added.

“I’ve never really wanted to, see.”

Crowley couldn’t quite stop his heart from slumping a few inches lower in his chest. They’d paused in front of the duckpond and the hungry bastards were now clustering eagerly at the pair’s feet.

“Why?” Stupid question really, the man didn’t need to justify his decision.

“Well, when I was in school, I had a few comments,” Azira’s face pinched “A few assumptions about who I was, who I was interested in.”

Crowley nodded slowly.

“But you see, I went to a Catholic school. My father was a priest, you see. And so these rumours started to spread, and they weren’t true, but that didn’t stop them from getting back to my family and my father punished me for a sin I hadn’t committed. Maybe to stamp it out of me.”

“Punished you?”

“Belt and bible,” Azira said quietly, curling in on himself. In an instant, the redhead could see a thirteen year old with silvery blonde hair cowering before a faceless father, about to receive a beating for a rumour.

“But it wasn’t true?”

“I made sure it wasn’t true,” Azira sighed. “From that day I vowed never to get involved with anyone. Lest I were unsatisfied by a relationship with a woman. It would be almost as affirming as the alternative.”

“No one?” Crowley said in disbelief.

“I found I never really craved — oh, that’s not the right word — never wanted to have relations anyway. It wasn’t that difficult, really, or at least I thought.”

Crowley nodded knowingly.

“I always thought I was broken, that my father had beaten my ability to love out of me with what he did. Then you came along and, I panicked. I panicked because I cared about you and I hadn’t cared for someone that way for a long time. You’re a good person, Crowley.” The blond met his eyes. Crowley shook his head, unable to process the words.

“No, I’m a fuck up,” He insisted, “I don’t deserve someone as good as you, angel.”

He felt a hand on his cheek and caught his breath. Azira was dragging him down to eye level, so that their foreheads were almost pressed together.

“Maybe we can work on that,” He replied, “I am really sorry for ignoring you these last few weeks. I was scared.”

“So was I,” Crowley admitted “I tried to get as far away as possible and yet—“

“Here I am.” Azira laughed “Yeah, I asked Anathema where you’d gotten to. Some of the messages you left with me were, well, I was worried about you, dear.”

“Messages?” Crowley frowned. There was a fuzzy memory of dialing Azira’s number, soaked in whatever cheap whiskey he’d managed to find that evening.

Azira grimaced and pulled out his (frankly ancient) Nokia, fumbling with the buttons.

Crowley’s voice spilled out of the receiver, slightly slurred but definitely his:

“Angel, I’ve been thinking, I’ve been thinking a lot — thinkin’ and drinking haha. I know you won’t talk to me but the guy at the liquor store will, his name’s Dave. He’s bit of an airhead compared to you angel, but I went in tonight and he gave me his number. How weird, huh? He must get hundreds of guys come in everyday and he picked me. Why would he pick me?” His voice cracked slightly. “I’m a mess but then he said he’d call me after work, and he texted me his address and I don’t do this type of thing. Not a big fan of sex, ya know? Nah you probably wouldn’t know. Fuck why am I telling you this? Ahhh never mind you’ll never check your messages. You hate me. S’okay I hate myself too. Sometimes I wonder if Ana and Newt do too, they’ve bin very nice to me these last few weeks but it’s my fault they had to move. I didn’t mean to get kicked out of Eden. Well, the first time, this time I think I was just angry. You know one night I had a dream of burning the place down? Ya. But they tell you that you’re supposed to talk about your feelings, not damage shit. What a joke!

They tell you a lot of things when you’re studying to unfuck people’s brain. Dr Tracy said I can’t say it like that, but it’s the truth ain’t it? Anyway, they tell you a lot of things and you feel like a complete idiot because you can’t seem to fix your own life. Like, this mindfulness bullshit, I don’t know how to do it. I just smash stuff. But then I go around preaching to these kids things about living in the damn moment and I’m such a hypocrite.

This was a bad idea. I can’t believe I thought I could help people,” There was a shuffling and a mumbling, “I make coffee now. Is that helping people? Probably not.” There was a groan and the call suddenly cut out.

Crowley scratched the back of his neck as Azira pocketed the phone.

“That was, I’m so sorry you had to hear all that,” He cringed.

“It’s okay,” the blond said simply, “I’m glad you can open up to someone, even if it’s after a few drinks. I’d prefer it if you’d talk to me sober, but I’m glad you got it out.”

Crowley squinted at him, searching his face for the disgust and rejection that he was waiting for.

There was nothing there.

“Crowley,” the barista’s breath caught as Azira put a hand on his, “If we’re going to do this, I think you need therapy.”

“You need therapy,” he shot back defensively.

“Maybe we both need therapy,” Azira smiled.

“Therapists don’t go to therapy,” Crowley sniffed.

“That’s very untrue,”

It was, but Crowley still had some small shred of pride in the way he’d made it through all these years without asking for help.

“Do it for the kids,” Azira tugged his hand a bit closer, pressing it again the lapels of his cream coat, “Can you do it for me?”

Somewhere within Crowley a dam that he’d been holding together for years broke and he found himself sobbing on the other’s shoulder.

“It’s okay,” Azira soothed, rubbing circles on Crowley’s back, “Well, it will be okay. But what is not okay… is this jacket, my dear. It’s so _not you_ it’s frankly offensive.”

Crowley chuckled, “That was the point, angel.”

“D’you think you can go back to being you, for me?” He asked gently, “The man who turned my world upside down?”

Crowley clung to the blond tighter.

He wasn’t ready just yet to say it, but he knew he’d do anything the other asked.

Including going to therapy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is paired with the song "Heaven" by Blink-182.  
No reason, it's just a good song.
> 
> Thank you for all of your awesome comments x


	14. You'll Always End Up Here (The End)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wensleydale is a type of cheese that is 10/10 when it contains dried cranberries - oh look this chapter comes with a food recommendation and a justification for why Wens's screen name is "cheeseboy" (Brian picked it for him)

“Ew, a book.” Beez commented as they sat down on Crowley’s couch. The book in question was a book of poetry, kindly gifted by the man who ran the bookshop downstairs.

“Oi, you can piss right off with that attitude.”

Beez shrugged.

“Didn’t know you go for that sappy stuff,” They propped their doc martins up on the coffee table and Crowley was beginning to regret ever extending the invitation to come over.

“It was a gift, okay?” He snapped, swatting with his tea towel until shoes were reluctantly removed from the table. It was hard to believe Beez of all people had been put in charge of Dante’s. They were a veritable mess, and that was coming from Crowley.

“Anyway, you sounded a bit upset on the phone? What’s up?”

Beez screwed up their face slightly. Sure, their mask had slipped a little on the phone, but they’d know Crowley for 6 months now and he was slowly becoming like the brother they never wanted but were stuck with.

“Owner can’t afford the rent for the shop anymore. Dante’s is gonna close.”

Crowley paused whilst making their not-quite-barista-standard cups of instant coffee.

“I’m sorry.”

Beez snorted, “Don’t be, it’s been going downhill since you left. Shit’s tiring. I wanted out anyway.”

It was a lie and they both knew it, but Crowley didn’t push.

“Y’know, there’s a bit of extra space downstairs in the bookshop. Maybe they’d like a cafe down there,” He mused.

“You and your bloody bookshop.”

“Hey, I literally live above it, it’s hard to get away from!” Crowley defended.

“Sure, sure.” They blew on their tea, as if exhaling a long breath of smoke. Beez smoked, of course, mostly because a smouldering cigarette matched their punk rock aesthetic.

“S’abit soft,” they gestured around the lounge room, at the argyle couches and the worn tapestry on the wall.

“It’s comfortable,” Crowley hissed, “If you’re just going to criticise where I live—“

“I can piss off, yeah, got that the first time,” They rolled their eyes, “Life would be a lot easier if you hadn’t have left to “find yourself” or whatever.”

“Easier?”

“Well, there’d be less fights between staff and customers. Your replacement - Dagon - bitch is crazy. You didn’t hear it from me. She’s taken to giving scalding hot coffee to anyone who specifies an exact temperature for their order.”

“Bastards,“ Crowley muttered.

“Yeah, but that’s not the point is it? What’re you doing these days anyway, you old hippy.”

Crowley flushed.

“I— err— well I work at the bookshop.”

They nearly spat out their coffee,

“You? In a bookshop. Damn, you’re whipped.”

“I enjoy it,” Crowley felt like this whole conversation was him defending his life choices and he wasn’t about it.

“Whatever you say,” Beez’s eyebrows disappeared in to scruffy black hair.

Crowley sighed and changed the conversation to the weather.

There was a letter on his doorstep as he ejected his ex-manager from the building (because “seeing them to the front door” rather implied that they hadn’t spent the last few hours being a complete nuisance).

“Oooh!” Beez snatched up the envelope “Someone’s getting hitched.”

“Give it here!” Crowley snatched the heavyweight cream envelope, with a curly script that was all too familiar. His heart sunk.

“Get out, get out!” He waved Beez off the property and slammed the door behind them.

With shaking hands, he undid the seal and unfolded the Save the Date.

“Son of a bitch actually proposed,” Crowley shook his head, a smirk playing on his lips.

For the last few months he’d been basically counselling Newt in Shrivenham over the phone as he umm-ed and err-ed and usually chickened out asking Anathema the big question. Last Crowley had heard, there was a picnic turned disaster where the man had managed to lose the ring in a lake (Crowley wasn’t about to ask). Nothing had come of it, and yet: he beamed at the invitation, affixing it to the front of his fridge and sending a quick congratulatory text to the happy couple.

A few minutes later his phone chimed.

> **Text Message**
> 
> **Thurs 12:11**
> 
> **Anathema:** thanks 4 ur help with the nervous wreck. I’d have proposed myself but I fear he’d passed out lol

Crowley grinned and headed downstairs to check on the shop.

It had required a little TLC, but the bookshop had gone from old and decrepit to old and cosy in just a few short weeks. The owner had all but given up on the venture and was happy to sell it to Crowley for a paltry sum, books included, so that he could retire to Iceland to photograph the penguins.

Never, in a million years, would Crowley have imagined himself buying a bookshop.

But, at the same time, he didn’t ever imagine he’d be where he was today.

He could hear arguing coming from one of the winding corridors of shelves, as he drew closer he realised the pair were hotly debating the quality of Stephen King’s writing.

“Dammit Beez, I told you to scram,” he said jokingly, “What happened to _ew books_, anyway?”

“I’m pretty sure you said that, not me,” they shot back.

At this comment, their companion pouted, turning on Crowley with ridiculous blue eyes that the man still couldn’t get enough of.

“Why would you say that, dear?”

“I didn’t,” the redhead assured, gently brushing Azira’s arm, “they’re just stirring up trouble.”

“Stir, stir, stir,” Beez laughed, handing the book back to Azira.

They traipsed up the aisle, without even saying goodbye, instead calling out “Bookshops are quite flammable, aren’t they?” as they exited the store.

Next to him, Azira tensed.

Despite a few months in their acquaintance, the man had yet to get used to Beez’s morbid humour — if one could be generous enough to call it that.

Crowley wrapped long arms around the bookseller, pressing a kiss on to his forehead.

“Don’t worry. Beez says stuff like that all the time. Remember that time they said they’d drown me in a bathtub if I kept giving you free scones?”

Azira turned around, face full of a shock that indicated that, no, he was not familiar with that particular threat.

“But you never stopped giving me free scones with my coffee,” he said slowly.

“‘Exactly, they’re all bark no bite.”

* * *

The days following the fated reunion (for some reason Anathema called it fate, despite the fact that she practically forced Azira to go to Crowley’s coffee shop) had gone something like this:

At first, Azira had come in to the cafe every day, ordering his usual fare (to which Crowley would add one of the aforementioned scones, despite the blond’s protests). He’d sit in the corner with a book and read for most of the day. At least, that’s what Crowley thought he was doing, until Beez mentioned that every time the redhead looked away he’d taken to staring over his novel.

And then, they’d talked. Quite a few times in fact, and Crowley finally understood the phenomena of emotional burnout. It was painful, baring his soul, even to someone as sweet and caring as Azira. They’d meet on Crowley’s ugly (“lovely,” Azira had said) couch and they’d talk about their pasts. For Crowley, the theme was loneliness, despite his jobs in crowded, pulsating clubs. He talked about the fallout from his expulsion and the shame he’d felt at being accused of something he didn’t do. But what was even stronger was the shame that the man felt for having trusted Lucien, to have let someone so young and callous have his heart and then proceed to tear it in two.

“You didn’t know,” Azira had said patiently.

“But I should’ve seen that something wasn’t right,” He’d insist “Now, looking back, it’s so bloody obvious that he didn’t care for me, was just using me for the thrill of it.”

“That’s not how things work. You can’t look back on decisions you made half a lifetime ago pretending that you should’ve known better. There’s a particularly lovely quote by Maya Angelou that goes something like _“I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.”_”

Crowley made a noncommittal hum,

“I ‘sppose.”

That was as close to acceptance as Azira had hoped for in these early stages.

They found some bloody-expensive therapists and the blond had all but dragged Crowley to an appointment, despite the other’s protests.

“You promised,” He shoved Crowley through the front door opening out in to a neat reception area.

“I promised because you said you’d—“ that wasn’t as good an argument as his brain thought it was, and the words trailed off.

“Yes?” Azira’s eyebrow quirked. The smug bastard was going to make him say it.

“Because— well, I was wondering if you’d— if you wanted to,” he scratched the back of his head and eyed the door, so distracted that it took him a few seconds to realise that Azira was doing exactly what he’d been trying to ask for, wrapping soft arms around his neck and pulling him in for a chaste kiss.

Crowley’s world imploded. This was new. This was exciting. This was absolutely terrifying, and he realised his legs were shaking so much that he was forced to break the contact to collapse in to the nearest seat.

Azira stood stock still, blushing like a bashful school girl.

“Ah, was that okay?” He wrung his hands in front of him.

Crowley let out a sharp exhale that he’d meant as a laugh, but his breathing was quite compromised at the moment.

“Of course it was okay, you daft idiot, get over here so we can do it again.”

The blond eagerly took the seat beside him, leaning over the armrest for a deeper, more explorative kiss.

After a few minutes, a few hours — who the fuck was keeping track — there was a small cough and the pair broke apart hurriedly.

“Sorry to break up an… intimate moment,” The woman standing before them seemed to be biting back a smile. Clipboard in hand and a tidy pencil skirt ensemble, she introduced herself as Dr Reynold (call me Rachel). As she walked them down to her office, she fixed the couple with a searching glance upon realising their hands were woven together.

“So, am I mistaken, I thought you were here for couples’ counselling?”

She wasn’t usually one to judge, but the display in reception had been something she didn’t tend to stumble across in the strained relationships she dealt with.

Azira laughed, light and musical.

“Oh no dear, but we both have things we need to work through and we thought, if it was okay with you, that we could work on them together. So that we can support each other.”

Rachel didn’t make a habit of crying in front of clients, but her eyes prickled at the sincerity in the blonds words.

What happened next was a flurry of activity that saw Azira move in to Crowley’s flat (“More economical than renting your own, I have two bedrooms.” The barista had said with an air of nonchalance). Azira had started up his teaching position at the local high school, and came home every day more excited that the last, as though he was finally getting to experience teaching without such a burdensome workload. Because he was.

And they grew closer. And they talked.

Soon they dropped all pretext and began sitting shoulder to shoulder on the couch during Netflix marathons. Sometimes Azira would fall asleep on his shoulder and Crowley would remain there far past his planned bedtime just for the warmth of the touch.

The reception was the first time they kissed. They’d long since realised they were both in the same boat, not wanting “all that” as Crowley had put it, Azira wrinkling his nose. But their boat allow gentle touches, warm morning hugs and night spend pressed against each other on the couch.

It was one such evening, where Crowley had coiled himself around his partner under the pretence of feeling cold that he felt Azira suddenly stiffen and sit up with a gasp, almost sending Crowley to the ground.

“Pepper!”

Crowley chuckled,

“Yes?”

“Oh dear, I’d completely forgotten to check in with how she’s doing. Oh, I’ve been so terribly negligent,” he wrung his hands anxiously, face wracked with guilt.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Crowley pushed him up so that he could take his phone out of his back pocket.

“Firstly,” Crowley paused, “I know you care, a lot. But it’s not your responsibility, you know? She’s in perfectly good hands.”

Azira pouted somewhat.

“I know… but—“

Crowley cut him off with a click of his tongue and pointed at the screen

It was a group chat, on one of those strange social media sites that Azira had never gone near.

It was titled:

> **Hooligans**
> 
> Members: brain, cheeseboy, saltyboutthepatriarchy, theAntichrist, Crowman

“S’a bit of a breach of professional boundaries,” Crowley qualified, “But I’m not their counsellor anymore,” but Azira had snatched the phone away and was frantically scrolling through weeks of conversation.

“You didn’t tell me?” He looked up, eyes wide.

“Ngk, to be honest I thought you’d tell me it’s inappropriate.”

Azira paused.

“Being friends with your students in online forums is not kosher.” He began to say, but was distractedby a message from a few weeks ago:

> **saltyboutthepatriarchy:** @Crowman! I talked to my dad like you said and he was really great about things. Thinks that since I’ve moved schools now and settled in that he might like to come with me to see that psychologist you recommended. It’s only a block away from Tadfield Secondary, so I should be able to get over there straight after school too.
> 
> **brain:** So no four-square?
> 
> **saltyboutthepatriarchy:** No four square
> 
> **theAntichrist:** We can always play three square
> 
> **cheeseboy:** That would be three triangle
> 
> **brain:** Fine triangle @cheeseboy, you just want the title of the @brain of the group, dream on

When Azira looked up, his eyes were brimming with tears.

“Oh, you’re so soft,” Crowley joked, pulling the man in for a hug, “You don’t seriously think I would’ve let them bugger off to another school, because of something I started, without a little bit of a check-in every now and then?”

The blond laughed against the other’s shoulder.

“Of course not, dear.”

* * *

Two years later a blaring ad appeared in the local paper, a desperate plea for staff for a certain Eden High School. Anathema called in a few favours and reported the story back to the others, crowded in to the reading area of the wildly successful A Z Fell & Co (Crowley was the company, and sometimes the Devices, and on a few special occasions the Them who stopped by between classes at the local university.)

“So,” Anathema seemed to be enjoying holding her audience in suspense, “A very intelligent, very pissed off journalism major tipped off the Department of Education about some less-than-up-to-scratch record keeping. A handful of falsified expenditure reports, a few questionable expulsions and a significant cheque coming from the Eden Institute of Science and Business to one Dr Gabriel Archangel.”

She unrolled the newspaper triumphantly. It wasn’t The Sun, or the Daily Mirror, but the face beaming back at them was all too familiar:

**Undergraduate Journalist Reveals Years of Wrongdoing.**

The picture was of Pepper sitting at a desk, piled high with the incriminating documents. It took Crowley a few seconds to recognise that it was Gabriel’s desk. 

“Holy shit!” Beez, who’d manage to secrete themselves into the heart of the bookshop in the last few years with a well placed cafe and reading nook (“I swear a drop of coffee on a single one of my books and I’ll throw your machine out the window!” Azira had warned. Surprisingly, for the book seller, there had been no accidents so far. Unsurprisingly, Crowley and Beez were just good at hiding the evidence.)

Crowley watched Azira’s eyes light up at the sight of his student splashed across the front page of the Eden Review.

“S’quite a scoop,” Newt noted “How on earth did she manage that?”

Both Azira and Anathema turned to the redhead.

“What?” He snapped, but the buzz of his phone betrayed him, the Hooligans were at it again. “So maybe I implied that Mary in admin is amenable to bribes.”

At the subtle look of horror on his partner’s face, Crowley was transported back in time to when the pair of them stood in an empty gym.

“_Jesus_, Azira. Nobody’s seducing anyone!” The bookseller relaxed slightly, “Besides, it didn’t take much. She’s been a bit annoyed, which I think is understatement of the year, about Gabriel trying to make advances on her all these years. The bastard seemed to think Mary could do a bit more than just redirect his calls.”

Beez growled, perhaps far too invested in the lives of people she’d never met. Crowley found it endearing, using it as further evidence for the hypothesis he’d been entertaining since day one: his friend was secretly a softie.

“Anyway,” Anathema continued, “A lot of the staff walked when he was sacked. Ridiculous amount of loyalty to that tosser, in my opinion. But now they’re down to a skeleton staff until they can bring in some new hires.”

She exchanged a glance with her husband.

“Newt and I have been talking about it, and I think the two of us are going to go back. As much as we love Shrivenham, it’s a chance to start all over — build Eden from the ground up without the likes of Gabriel around.”

Crowley nodded in agreement, hand finding his partner’s and giving it a squeeze. Maybe it was tempting for the English teacher too. He was working part time, and running the bookshop at odd hours, but Eden had always been a sort of home for him.

He thought back to his own sordid history with the school — most of which he’d been able to reconcile through hours of therapy, and the occasional outburst as the couple lay on the couch talking about nothing in particular.

What was that saying, about getting back on the horse? Crowley detested horses, it was a terrible metaphor, but that wasn’t the point. He’d spent two years managing the shop’s affairs as his love marked essays and prepared presentations, contented in the joy that lit up the blond’s face when he spoke about what he loved. When they closed up for the night, they’d retire to the rooftop courtyard above the shop, where a large enclosure held the rest of Azira’s family, when they weren’t out conning food out of weak townspeople. They’d sprawl on the picnic blanket they’d set up, often joined by Ren (who indeed liked to camouflage herself in Crowley’s hair) or Abby (who popped by to see if the pair had brought any food, giving her owner a sharp nip if he forgot) and gaze at the stars. It was lovely. It was comfortable, and it was the furthest things from alone that Crowley had ever come to know.

(Rachel was currently working with him to say those three words, that he’d felt in his heart from the moment Azira had fussed with lending him his umbrella, but had held close for fear of disappointment.)

Azira looked at him with barely concealed hope. There was a time, long ago, that Crowley realised he could never say no to the man. This time he didn’t even want to, rather, charging forward with a heart full of the dreams that had tethered him in even the darkest of hours.

And so he said “We could go too, angel.” And the blond’s mouth was agape.

“You really want to?”

“Of course, anywhere you go.”

It was part of the truth, the other part was the unspoken knowledge that the pair of them would go to the ends of the earth to rebuild Eden in to a school worthy of it’s name.

Azira squeaked and collided with his partner for a mess of a hug.

“I love you,” the blond whispered into Crowley’s chest.

Crowley paused for a second, aware that there were three pairs of eyes on them. They hadn’t said it before, least of all with an audience. A binding commitment. A public display, primed for rejection.

Crowley swallowed it all down and grasped the teacher tighter,

“I love you too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, despite requests for pyrotechnics, I couldn't find a way to get Beez to burn down Eden, but hopefully Gabriel's ending is satisfying enough - he's not getting a job anywhere soon and you know Crowley's going to get Mary to file harassment charges because he's the best lil snek.
> 
> Wahoo! Thanks for keeping up. This is the longest fic I've ever done, and it's been produced in 8 days making shit up as I go along, I hope my memory serves me and there aren't any terrible inconsistencies because of it, please comment if you find any.
> 
> Now to actually start my uni work... haha.... unless?... *stares longingly at fic prompts*


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